New Urban Disaster

Austin is certainly my favorite city in Texas, and this city has been working hard to sustain growth as others all over the country realize what a gem this booming urban center is. In the last 15 years a lot has been done to revamp this once quiet capital. For starters, the downtown area has been an area of focus for new development and redevelopment. Like many other growing cities, Austin has unfortunately latched on to the growing trend of “New Urbanism,” and has employed such new urbanism into much of its recent development projects, something that threatens to destroy the potential that Austin has as both a progressive and unique city.

New urbanism isn’t terribly new. It’s a development trend that started in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s with towns like Seaside, FL. There’s actually a lot of really cool things about new urbanism. It’s meant to be high density, pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and mixed-use, all of which are aspects of model cities. However, many new urbanism developments end up becoming homogenous, exclusive, and aesthetically contrived, all of which are aspects that begin to reek of suburbia more than “urbanism.” In Austin, the two most shining examples of new urbanism are the Mueller Development and the 2nd St District. Both of these areas look like places where people can walk around, shop, dine, and live in close proximity. And yes, you certainly can—if you at least look like you have enough money to do so. The housing is unaffordable. The shops and restaurants are top end. If your beard looks a little too scruffy you’re most likely not even welcome to amble about on the sidewalks let alone use the services offered in these mixed-use developments. Like I said, new urbanism is a breeding ground for exclusivity and homogeneity, thus destroying public space by allowing only certain parts of the public to enjoy that space.

For Texas, a state with a rich history of populism, and for Austin, a city that prides itself on a healthy dose of liberalism (or at least more than the rest of the state), new urbanism is a direct violation of equality, especially in access to public space and resources. But the worst part of the city of Austin’s endorsing of new urbanism development is not only the destruction of public space, but the fact that such exclusivity and homogeneity also effectively destroys one of the few avenues for intermingling of classes. The city streets are thus the veins of the urban organism. Those veins require diversity to survive. Thus new urbanism is killing the urban organism by killing the streets by killing the diversity on those streets. If we want Austin to grow to truly be the city it can be, new urbanism must come to a halt. Otherwise, Austin will be doomed to become an undistinguished urban area of underlying discrimination. Austin needs to stop endorsing, subsidizing, and even allowing new urbanism developments and instead find other ways to sustain growth while retaining the true vitality, identity, and values the city is famous for.