Ascending the ivory tower

A comprehensive list of research on new urbanist topics reveals some constructive studies — and the need for more. At the first new urbanist Council in 2001, CNU cofounder Stefanos Polyzoides told the group that the new urbanist movement needed not only an impressive body of built work in order to achieve its goals, but a complementary body of published scholarship as well. Since then, the quantity of research on new urbanist topics has grown steadily. The best measures are two bibliographies first compiled by CNU Educators Task Force members Lucy Rowland and Emily Talen in 2001 and updated annually since then. The first lists — one covering peer-reviewed articles, the other graduate dissertations and theses — were portable enough to distribute to members of the task force at the next CNU Congress. But when Rowland and Talen updated the list for CNU XII this summer, there was so much research on, for, and against New Urbanism (as well as related topics such as the relationship between urban form and transit use) that the resulting bibliographies were too large to distribute as hard copies. Instead, the lists have been posted to CNU’s website (in the Educators Task Force section of “About CNU,” look for the New Urbanist Research Agenda). Serious research on the rise According to Talen and Rowland, academic readers today are more likely — though not necessarily by much — to encounter credible research and less likely to encounter the put downs such as “hypersimulations of urban utopias” that were used to dismiss New Urbanism in earlier work. At CNU XII, Talen told members of the Educators Task Force that hot research topics include whether new urbanist developments have achieved results such as reduced automobile use or enhanced community interaction. While more reports approach the movement as a legitimate proposition for addressing flaws in the built environment, too many set out to prove “in a cynical way” whether or not New Urbanism “works,” says Talen, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Missing is a whole body of work that subjects New Urbanism to critical analysis either to make the case for its viability or to help it overcome shortcomings. “Research that takes New Urbanism as a given and attempts to help understand what processes help it along is neglected, as is research that measures where and when and why good urbanism occurs,” she says. Despite that critique, the list still contains a number of studies that new urbanists can use to their benefit (see sidebar). And gaps in the list provide strong cues about where research should go in the future. “I would like a subcommittee of the Educators Task Force to look at what has been published about New Urbanism and determine what needs further study based on that review,” says Rowland, the head of science collections and research facilities at the University of Georgia Libraries. She says encouraging such scholarship is a natural way to further another goal of the task force: improving the curricula in architecture and planning programs. “This would be a wonderful opportunity, particularly for graduate students, to choose a research topic for a thesis or dissertation, serving a two-fold purpose of creating a better body of scholarly literature and injecting New Urbanism in a natural way into the curriculum.” u