In New Urbanist developments, no house is more than a five-minute walk from a neighborhood center with a convenience store, coffee shop, bus stop and other amenities. The segregated layout of conventional suburbia, Duany argues, is the origin of its complaints, such as loss of open space and slavery to the steering wheel. Conscientious design compensates for the higher housing density. I have come to Huntersville to see the lesser-known side of New Urbanism, how it builds consensus as well as streets. Along with half a dozen of the idealistic twentysomething architects that his firm attracts, Duany transforms the town council chamber for a week into a design studio, replete with black lamps, white posterboard and the whiz-grind of pencil sharpeners.
Every day utilities engineers, parks officials or fire marshals come to meet.
Every evening Duany presents the latest plans at a public meeting. It is a chance for a community to take stock of its future and to see whether Duany's practices really do nurture openness and communal problem solving. In Huntersville the task is easier than elsewhere. The town, having seen its population swell from 3,000 to 26,000 in a decade, scrapped its traditional zoning ordinances and adopted a New Urbanist code in 1996. Still, Duany gives the pitches demanded of him in less sympathetic places.