Campuses become catalysts for change

Several emerging university centers take on new urbanist and smart growth research and education. Universities in Maryland, Georgia, Florida, and Indiana have opened — or will soon open — centers that focus on smart growth and community building. The design principles of the New Urbanism underpin the agenda of these centers, and taken together, they suggest that the trend is gaining a foothold in an academic world that so far has not been very hospitable to new urbanist ideas and practices. Such centers promise to take on two crucial tasks: 1) to conduct research that explores the physical, social, environmental, and economic impact of compact, pedestrian-oriented development; and 2) to educate government officials, planning professionals, and community activists who more than ever need broad, cross-disciplinary knowledge to effectively manage growth. Chuck Bohl, who has been appointed director of the new Community Building Program at the University of Miami’s School of Architecture, says both internal and external factors have pushed universities in this direction. “If we look within the planning schools, it’s clear that urban design is bubbling up to the surface again.” At the same time, sprawl has risen to the top of people’s list of concerns in their communities, and foundations are ready to fund research and outreach on smart growth issues, Bohl says. Research with national and local applications As its name implies, the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland in College Park hopes to become a clearinghouse for research on this subject. According to Interim Director Jim Cohen, the center will analyze the impact of alternative development patterns, as well as monitor and evaluate specific smart growth initiatives in Maryland and elsewhere. The agenda also includes developing computer models to assist policy makers in growth management decisions. Maryland’s National Center is a multidisciplinary collaboration between several departments: the Urban Studies and Planning Program, the School of Public Affairs, the Architecture Program, the Department of Civil Engineering, the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and Landscape Architecture. The university funds the center with $350,000 annually and the state has chipped in $200,000 for a Smart Growth Leadership Training Program for fiscal year 2000-2001. Florida Atlantic University’s Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems has done research on sustainable communities for decades. With the launching of the Abacoa Project, the university will turn the spotlight on a specific new urbanist community and the lessons that can be learned there. The Abacoa Project is housed on a new campus in the traditional neighborhood development (TND) Abacoa in Jupiter, Florida. “Abacoa will be a living laboratory for the concepts of New Urbanism, and it is extremely important that the university provides input,” says James Murley, director of the Joint Center. “What we learn here will help guide growth plans in Florida and around the nation.” The project aims to pay particular attention to issues such as schools, economic diversity, health care, and civic institutions. Initial funding for the project comes from a $2 million gift from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Researchers at the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) are currently studying the connection between land use, travel behavior, and air quality in the Atlanta area. Professor Larry Frank, who heads the SMARTRAQ (Strategies for Metropolitan Atlanta’s Regional Transportation and Air Quality) program, wrote a proposal for the Atlanta Regional Commission to create a land use/transportation institute at the university. The proposal came to the attention of Post Properties CEO John Williams, who donated $1.5 million to endow a Distinguished Chair in City Planning. Williams has also agreed to head the fund-raising effort for the establishment of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development at Georgia Tech. How the center will operate will largely be determined by the new chair who will be hired for the fall of 2001. According to Georgia Tech spokesperson Sean Selman, the university is looking for a candidate with “expertise in design, financing, and policy issues relating to urban sprawl and New Urbanism.” Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture is now headed by Ellen Dunham-Jones, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a charter member of the Congress for the New Urbanism. The Notre Dame School of Architecture in South Bend, Indiana, has established a center that will employ the expertise of faculty and students to assist developers and public officials on projects in that city. The South Bend Urban Center places a strong emphasis on designing the public realm. Startup funding for the center came from the Siemens Corporation. Reaching out This kind of outreach into the world beyond the campus is characteristic of all the emerging centers. In Maryland, a group of federal officials were the first to enroll in the Smart Growth Leadership Development Program last November. The center will also help the Maryland Department of Planning develop model codes, guidelines, and review protocols that local governments can adopt. At Georgia Tech, the SMARTRAQ study includes outreach sessions with developers, local government leaders, lenders, and public health experts. These sessions identify barriers to smart growth and how to overcome them. The Abacoa Project not only expects to assist Florida communities and developers who want to improve the built environment, but will also host lectures and work on creating a childcare/parenting center for Abacoa. At the University of Miami, the School of Architecture, led by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, has been a leader in research and teaching that focuses on the New Urbanism and smart growth. With the Community Building Program,the school is “trying to convey that New Urbanism is not just about design,” Bohl says. A $2.1 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will help fund a fellowship program that brings planners, community leaders, activists, and journalists to the school six times a year for intensive, interdisciplinary seminars and workshops. “This is a good opportunity to bring in people from regional newspapers and other news outlets and have them explore how community building relates to other topics,” Bohl says. At the end of the program, the fellows will participate in a charrette for an actual development in one of the 26 cities where Knight-Ridder publishes newspapers. The program will also offer scholarships for a post-professional Master of Architecture degree in suburban and town design. Issues addressed by the part-time fellows will feed into the curriculum of the full-time students, Bohl says. He expects the program to publish the case studies and theses written by the fellows, as well as books on the New Urbanism from outside sources. “This is an ideal place for this to happen. We can draw on a great pool of South Florida new urbanists to participate,” Bohl says.