The Congress for the New Urbanism views disinvestment in central cities, the

spread of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental

deterioration, loss of agricultural lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society’s
built heritage as one interrelated community-building challenge.

We stand for the restoration of existing urban centers and towns within coherent
metropolitan regions, the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of
real neighborhoods and diverse districts, the conservation of natural environments,
and the preservation of our built legacy.

We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to

support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and
population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well
as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally
accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed
by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology,
and building practice.

We recognize that physical solutions by themselves will not solve social and economic
problems, but neither can economic vitality, community stability, and environmental
health be sustained without a coherent and supportive physical framework.

We represent a broad-based citizenry, composed of public and private sector

leaders, community activists, and multidisciplinary professionals. We are committed
to reestablishing the relationship between the art of building and the making
of community, through citizen-based participatory planning and design.

We dedicate ourselves to reclaiming our homes, blocks, streets, parks, neighborhoods,

districts, towns, cities, regions, and environment.

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We assert the following principles to guide public policy,
development practice, urban planning, and design:

The region: Metropolis, The neighborhood, the The block, the street,
city, and town district, and the corridor and the building
1) Metropolitan regions are finite places with 10) The neighborhood, the district, and the corridor 19) A primary task of all urban architecture and
geographic boundaries derived from topography, are the essential elements of development and landscape design is the physical definition of
watersheds, coastlines, farmlands, regional parks, redevelopment in the metropolis. They form streets and public spaces as places of shared use.
and river basins. The metropolis is made of identifiable areas that encourage citizens to take
multiple centers that are cities, towns, and villages, responsibility for their maintenance and evolution. 20) Individual architectural projects should be
each with its own identifiable center and edges. seamlessly linked to their surroundings. This issue
11) Neighborhoods should be compact, pedestrian transcends style.
2) The metropolitan region is a fundamental friendly, and mixed-use. Districts generally
economic unit of the contemporary world. emphasize a special single use, and should follow 21) The revitalization of urban places depends
Governmental cooperation, public policy, physical the principles of neighborhood design when on safety and security. The design of streets and
planning, and economic strategies must reflect possible. Corridors are regional connectors of buildings should reinforce safe environments, but
this new reality. neighborhoods and districts; they range from not at the expense of accessibility and openness.
boulevards and rail lines to rivers and parkways.
3) The metropolis has a necessary and fragile 22) In the contemporary metropolis, development
relationship to its agrarian hinterland and natural 12) Many activities of daily living should occur must adequately accommodate automobiles. It
landscapes. The relationship is environmental, within walking distance, allowing independence should do so in ways that respect the pedestrian
economic, and cultural. Farmland and nature are to those who do not drive, especially the elderly and the form of public space.
as important to the metropolis as the garden is and the young. Interconnected networks of streets
to the house. should be designed to encourage walking, reduce 23) Streets and squares should be safe, comfort-
the number and length of automobile trips, and able, and interesting to the pedestrian. Properly
4) Development patterns should not blur or conserve energy. configured, they encourage walking and enable
eradicate the edges of the metropolis. Infill neighbors to know each other and protect their
development within existing urban areas 13) Within neighborhoods, a broad range of communities.
conserves environmental resources, economic housing types and price levels can bring people
investment, and social fabric, while reclaiming of diverse ages, races, and incomes into daily 24) Architecture and landscape design should
marginal and abandoned areas. Metropolitan interaction, strengthening the personal and civic grow from local climate, topography, history,
regions should develop strategies to encourage bonds essential to an authentic community. and building practice.
such infill development over peripheral expansion.
14 ) Transit corridors, when properly planned and 25) Civic buildings and public gathering places
5) Where appropriate, new development contigu- coordinated, can help organize metropolitan require important sites to reinforce community
ous to urban boundaries should be organized as structure and revitalize urban centers. In identity and the culture of democracy. They
neighborhoods and districts, and be integrated contrast, highway corridors should not displace deserve distinctive form, because their role is
with the existing urban pattern. Noncontiguous investment from existing centers. different from that of other buildings and places
development should be organized as towns and that constitute the fabric of the city.
villages with their own urban edges, and planned 15) Appropriate building densities and land
for a jobs/housing balance, not as bedroom suburbs. uses should be within walking distance of transit 26) All buildings should provide their inhabitants
stops, permitting public transit to become a with a clear sense of location, weather and time.
6) The development and redevelopment of towns viable alternative to the automobile. Natural methods of heating and cooling can be
and cities should respect historical patterns, more resource-efficient than mechanical systems.
precedents, and boundaries. 16) Concentrations of civic, institutional, and
commercial activity should be embedded in 27) Preservation and renewal of historic buildings,
7) Cities and towns should bring into proximity neighborhoods and districts, not isolated in districts, and landscapes affirm the continuity and
a broad spectrum of public and private uses to remote, single-use complexes. Schools should be evolution of urban society.
support a regional economy that benefits people sized and located to enable children to walk or
of all incomes. Affordable housing should be bicycle to them.
distributed throughout the region to match job
opportunities and to avoid concentrations of poverty. 17) The economic health and harmonious evolution
of neighborhoods, districts, and corridors can be
8) The physical organization of the region should improved through graphic urban design codes that
be supported by a framework of transportation serve as predictable guides for change.
alternatives. Transit, pedestrian, and bicycle systems
should maximize access and mobility throughout 18) A range of parks, from tot-lots and village
the region while reducing dependence upon the greens to ballfields and community gardens,
automobile. should be distributed within neighborhoods.
Conservation areas and open lands should be
9) Revenues and resources can be shared more used to define and connect different neighbor-
cooperatively among the municipalities and hoods and districts.
centers within regions to avoid destructive
competition for tax base and to promote rational
coordination of transportation, recreation, public
services, housing, and community institutions.

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