Is New Urbanism the cure?

I just read an interesting article about New Urbanism, a movement against sprawling cities and our dependence on the automobile. The philosophy claims that we can retrofit our cities into denser neighborhoods where all of our needs, or most of them, can be within walking distance. This includes work, school, shopping, entertainment, etc. Essentially, the movement calls for a return to lifestyles before WWII, when cars were not such a central part of the average American’s life.

Immediately the question comes to mind – What about our existing infrastructure? How do we redirect the vast majority of business that happens in the big cities? It seems extreme to think we could noticeably impact the environment or the American lifestyle by creating small communities here and there. How can the movement be carried out in large scale? In an effort to amuse the theory, we’ll say that we all adopt the New Urbanism motto and we start decentralizing our major businesses and breaking apart our big cities. Could it be done? I say yes, and I’ll add that I think businesses could adapt to that kind of environment with today’s communication devices. However, the cost would un-imaginable.

The idea behind New Urbanism is fantastic. The health, social, and environmental benefits of a walking or biking community is great. However, it must be integrated with our society. Any business man or woman would tell you that it would not market well to completely change our lifestyle. The convenience of the car far out-weighs anyone’s desire to walk more. It would cost much less to create an infrastructure that would support fully electric cars, and people would get to keep driving. So what do we do with the movement? It’s definitely worth keeping around. The projected sq. footage of new residential space to be built before the year 2030 is in the billions. New developments can be designed around the ideas of New Urbanism. This supports a healthy society, increases opportunities to protect our environment, and decreases the time spent in transit for the community. Both New Urbanism and our advances in technology should be used to work together, to create a large scale impact on our environmental and social damage.