paper: comparing landscape urbanism and new urbanism
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2013
Erik-Jan van Oosten
ENP-32306
4/26/2013
Comparing Landscape Urbanism and New
Urbanism from a behavioral perspective
1
Contents
Introduction: ...................................................................................................................................................... 1
Goal: .................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Theory: ............................................................................................................................................................... 2
List of social practices: ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Analysis: ............................................................................................................................................................. 4
Spatial analysis: ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Travel ............................................................................................................................................................. 5
Food consumption ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Leisure ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
Shopping ........................................................................................................................................................ 7
Work. ............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Gardening ...................................................................................................................................................... 8
Social contacts ............................................................................................................................................... 8
Results: .............................................................................................................................................................. 9
Clarification of the scale: ............................................................................................................................. 10
Conclusion: ...................................................................................................................................................... 10
Discussion: ....................................................................................................................................................... 11
References: ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Introduction: The transition towards a more resilient, sustainable urban environment is a much debated
issue within the realm urban design (Sherman, 2010). There are two main movements that both
envision a new paradigm that society should aim for (Pérez, 2011). On one side there are the New
Urbanists who claim that a higher density leads to more livable streets, more use of public transport,
a lower CO2 footprint and more support for urban services. This movement started in 1961 with
Jane Jacobs and her book called “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” which mainly
focused on the social issues (Jacobs, 1961). This vision was adopted later on by Leon Krier and
given an ecological dimension.
On the other side we find Landscape Urbanism which aims at achieving low density, green
and to large extent self-sufficient cities. They claim that suburbia are a better typology for
adaptation and mitigation measures. The originator of this movement was Frank Lloyd Wright who
designed a hypothetical town called “Broadacre City” in 1932 in which every family owns one acre
of land (Wright, 1935). This assures the possibility for self-sufficiency on an almost individual basis.
This variation of the “American Dream” is closely linked to various grass-root initiatives like the
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earthship-movement and living with nature ideologies but also in academic community, proponents
like James Corner, Rem Koolhaas and Charles Waldheim (Waldheim, 2006) regard the Landscape
Urbanist view as the new paradigm for sustainability, especially in Harvard this paradigm is widely
supported (Neyfakh, 2011).
This debate mainly takes place between architects, spatial planners and landscape architects
who tend to look at space and problem solving in a different way than social scientists. The
discussion is broader than just the "greenness" of the behaviour of the inhabitants. Also aesthetics,
ecology, scarcity of space, traffic and economic viability are debated issues in both paradigms. To
narrow the scope of this research only the capability of both Landscape Urbanism and New
Urbanism to provide alternatives for sustainable behaviour and thus alter the lifestyles of the actors
will be investigated.
Goal: The goal is to compare the New Urbanist (NU) concept and the Landscape Urbanism (LU)
concept from a social practices perspective and find out which one theoretically leads to greener
behavior.
Theory: The research of Connolly & Prothero
(2008) shows the limits of the current way
society is organized. It is hard for actors to
behave in line with their own beliefs. This is a
problem of a discrepancy between the actor
and the structure: What actors do depends,
according to Spaargaren, on the systems of
provisioning and the lifestyle choices
(Spaargaren & van Vliet, 2000). The system of
provisioning is in this case the urban form and
the features it provides are the possibilities of
action. The aim of a good system is to empower the actors to make the choices that are in line with
their ideals. The question is: Is Landscape Urbanism or New Urbanism more effective in improving
the provisioning side of the city?
A problem with the Structuration theory as devised by Giddens and further developed by
Spaargaren as social practices theory (Spaargaren, 2003) is that of the inconsistent results in the
lifestyle segment. Multiple "milieux of action" result in substantially varying results (Dunn, 2008).
Figure 1. The social practices model.
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This will pose no threat to the validity of this
research because it does focus on comparing two
distinct "milieux of action", not society as a whole.
Therefore this inconsistency in the model is not a
problem; it makes it more suitable for this research.
In Spaargaren's model the systems of
provisioning are the whole of society, not just a
small part of that. For the analysis of the different
urban forms the model has to take into account
that there are two possible actions for the actors:
the green choice as provided by the design and the
regular, less feasible choice (external factors and common practices). This duality simplifies the
issue of choice by assuming that there is only one, best option provided by the structure and one
best alternative to each option. For example: The option “commuting by public transport” has
“commuting by car” as best, most common alternative. Figure 2 shows the modification of the
model to reflect this ability to choose between the provided option (green) and an alternative (red).
The best paradigm is the one that not only provides the best options for the actors but also
discourages the alternatives.
List of social practices: Central to Spaargaren’s model are the social practices which are the result of the lifestyle
choices on one hand and the systems of provisioning on the other. There are an infinite number of
possible social practices and the mentioned social practices in Spaargaren’s original model should
be regarded as examples, not as all available choices.
To compare LU and NU in a meaningful manner it is important to select a representative list
of social practices. The practices that are selected are the ones that are most common in Dutch daily
lives (SCP, 2011) and are manipulable by urban form. Watching television for example is one of the
most common social practices but it is not a good indicator because there are no differences in the
provisioning side.
The 7 selected practices are: travel, food consumption, leisure, work, shopping, gardening
and social contacts. Unfortunately some overlap was unavoidable: Travel is an intrinsic part of
many social practices and so is food consumption.
It is assumed that the outcome of every social practice can be summed to calculate the total
effective impact on the lifestyle of the actor. Consistency between the different practices is
neglected to not over-complicate the research. So it is possible that a high amount of car use which
Figure 2. Adapted social practices model with implementation of alternative choices.
Travel
Work
Leisure
Gardening
Contacts
Shopping
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remains unchallenged in the Landscape Urbanism paradigm is compensated for by more food
awareness and greener food consumption.
Analysis: How the 7 practices are implemented by both of the provisioning structures and their
relation to the actor are investigated in this chapter. The core of both paradigms however is urban
form. Therefore a spatial analysis will first clarify both design approaches.
Spatial analysis:
The design principles by NU and LU are used to visualize a map of a "typical neighbour-
hood" for further clarification of both paradigms.
Figure 3. Landscape Urbanism
The Landscape Urbanism map has a large amount of green space. Where New Urbanism ad-
vocates layering uses and multi-use places the Landscape Urbanism leaves that job to nature. Water
retention, urban cooling, biodiversity, food production, improved air quality and health benefits are
all being obtained by giving space to a green agenda. Direct connection to the road is important
because the goal is to combine the high service level of living in the city centre with the spacious
qualities of living in the periphery.
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Figure 4. New Urbanism
The New Urbanism map consists of mainly 4 to 6 storey buildings. High density is needed to
provide as much services as possible within cycling and walking distance. The neighbourhood is
highly permeable for cyclists and pedestrians to promote these practices. The inverse strategy is
applied on car usage; the roads do often have a dead-end to discourage car travel. There is always a
shortage of parking space to further discourage travelling by car. The buildings are mainly accessi-
ble by public transport and cycling/walking. Green spaces are mostly concentrated in public parks
because the lack of space. By literally minimizing the footprint of the city it is argued that compact
city planning leaves more space for “real” nature to grow.
Travel
Actors have a preference to the closest option as behavioural studies have shown (Wansink
et al, 2006). This is important to keep in mind when planning infrastructure. Infrastructure is a
determining factor for the feasibility of certain modes of travel. Spatial characteristics such as
connectivity are pivotal when it comes to walkability of a neighbourhood (Shriver, 1997). There
have been found significant correlations with the availability of sidewalks and bicycle paths and
their usage (Ewing et al, 2003). Also the presence of speed bumps and dead ends can discourage car
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travel (Maat et al, 2005). Another measure is reducing the amount of parking spaces (Shoup, 2005)
The three main strategies (Maat et al, 2005) to reduce the impact of travel are: 1. The travel
time is minimized, 2. The benefits are maximized or 3. The activity patterns are optimized.
New Urbanism focuses on the minimization of the travel time by advocating mixed-use and
thus decreasing the travel distances between the different functions. Landscape Urbanism on the
other hand maximizes the benefits of the land uses by promoting large shopping malls and business
parks. From the perspective of maximizing the utility of the actor, car travel is an excellent,
empowering mode of transport. The gasoline consumption increases in less dense areas, but also the
number of traffic jams and air pollution decreases. There is however a strong link between health
and travel. Less dense areas are significantly associated with obesity and higher BMIs (Ewing et al,
2003). There is no unambiguous answer, but high density is likely to be preferable to lower density
when it comes to travel.
Food consumption
There are two, interlinked, aspects that are of importance for the effects of urban form on
food consumption. One is the amount of food that is this consumed, the other is the impact of the
food that is consumed. The environmental damage is the amount multiplied by the impact
(Spaargaren & Van Koppen, 2013). The omnipresent availability of food in dense urban areas may
lead to a higher consumption. But also the opposite may be true: the fact that it takes a 30 minute
car drive to the supermarket may lead to building large supplies of food indoors, which may lead to
more consumption. There has been no research on this subject so it is assumed that the first
argument about the omnipresence of food out-weights the food-harvesting in the suburb.
The impact of the food that is produced is reflected in the actor’s choice. The awareness of
the actor determines to which degree the "greenness" of a product matters in the process of
choosing the right product. The Landscape Urbanism paradigm has a clear advantage because of the
aim to re-establish the link between people and their food. Growing food and living in a green
environment are generally seen as awareness-raisers (Goodman, 2002)
Leisure
Leisure is a general term for a wide range of activities. Most of the leisure time is spent
indoors (Robinson, 1969) which means most of the leisure activities are not influenced by urban
form. The outdoor activities can be roughly subdivided in two parts: extensive and intensive leisure.
Extensive leisure consists of walking, cycling, fishing and other placid practices. Intensive leisure
consists of more energetic activities such as scating, jogging, and surfing. The more peaceful
neighbourhood of Landscape Urbanism generally better accommodates the extensive leisure
activities while the opportunities of intensive leisure are bigger in neighbourhoods of New
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Urbanism. Only when it is determined if one type of leisure is preferable to the other, a qualitative
conclusion can be drawn.
Another way of looking at the provisioning of leisure is by analysing the infrastructure.
When all cycle paths and sidewalks of LU are compared to all the cycle paths and sidewalks from
NU we find that New Urbanism provides a substantial larger amount of paths. To conclude: the
promotion of outdoor activities is slightly higher in the New Urbanist paradigm.
Shopping
The practice of shopping has, from a utilitarian perspective, become a redundant part of our
daily lives. Shopping in the sense of "getting goods" can easily be replaced by online alternatives.
There is however a social component to the practice of shopping. The actor sees shopping as an
intrinsic part of its lifestyle, not as a way to gather goods.
The importance of the social side of shopping has not been agreed upon and ranges from
"You are what you buy" to "just utilitarian and some hedonistic needs". What is regarded as true is
that shopping has a social side that can't be left out of the equation.
Landscape Urbanism amplifies current, diverging shopping trends: bigger, centralized
shopping centres with all multinational brands represented and the smaller, informal and artisanal
enterprises. The big malls profit from the car-oriented infrastructure and low urban density. It
becomes worthwhile to drive to these big stores that got everything than drive 10 minutes less to a
small neighbourhood store. The local scale is promoted by offering space for small start-ups.
Houses usually have a garage or shed. Selling your own vegetables or starting a wood workshop are
viable possibilities for small hobbyists that want to contribute to society. Steve Jobs for example
started in such a garage with the fabrication of computers.
New urbanism attenuates the current shopping trend. The large malls are not
pedestrian/cyclist friendly and often remotely located which makes them hard to reach. The small
companies often have problems with their start-up costs due to high rent/ground prices. This leads
to a dominance of medium sized shops and companies. The shopping behaviour of an actor living in
a Landscape Urbanist world will consist of less frequent but more intense shopping experiences.
The New Urbanist way of shopping is more frequent because the actor will be confronted with
shops more often in its daily life, but will be less intense. Because the New Urbanist dweller will
have more choice where and when to shop the actor is more empowered to choose for the
sustainable option.
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Work.
The practice of work is to a large extent comparable to that of the practice of shopping.
Shops compete in the same way to get costumers as companies compete to get employees. The
difference is firstly that it is far easier for the actor to go to a different store than to switch jobs. The
high effort/prize the actor has to pay to change its behaviour means that the provisioning side has to
come up with something that is worthwhile.
Secondly, unlike the case of shopping, LU and NU don't envision a sustainable future for
work. LU assumes that people drive to an unspecified business park and NU sees the whole urban
population practicing in local jobs in the tertiary sector. The lack of emphasis on work can be
explained because city planning has a limited impact the work situation and it is, as stated before,
very hard to convince the actor to change or even challenge its working behaviour. New Urbanism
nudges the actor to work more local while Landscape Urbanism does not promote nor discourages
working practices.
Gardening
The practice of gardening serves multiple purposes in the Landscape Urbanism paradigm.
From concrete goals such as stimulating the local ecology and providing opportunities for the actors
to grow their own food to more abstract goals such as re-connecting urban life with nature and raise
awareness by involvement with nature. New Urbanism on the other hand does not encourage
gardening, except for some small, idealistic roof gardens most green space is provided by public
parks which seldom provide space for gardening.
Gardening has been proven to be a method of stress relief (Van Den Berg & Custers 2011)
and can function well as a social hub (S. Lee, 2001). There are no clear disadvantages of gardening
when it comes to wellbeing of the actor or the environment. Therefore gardening is seen as a no-
regrets, universally good practice.
Social contacts
Landscape urbanism provokes a more self-contained lifestyle with little interactions because
of the big distances between the different the dwellings. New Urbanism aims at a vibrant street life
and needs a high population density to ensure a busy streetscape. Social sustainability is important
because it improves the stability of the neighbourhood, community empowerment and local
governance (Dempsey et al, 2011). New Urbanism has a clear advantage because of the high
amount of people stacked together and the mixed-use spaces do invite for social interaction. In other
words: there is a high exposure and high concentration. However, Landscape urbanists argue that
the rushed city life leads to a shallower social life and that the more peaceful, quiet lifestyle of the
suburbs gives space to deeper friendships. There is unfortunately no empirical data to support this
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argument. The lack of a community oriented approach and increased distances between inhabitants
makes the Landscape Urbanist paradigm rate poorly while the New Urbanist paradigm has a strong
focus on social sustainability and scores the maximum points.
Table 1. The differences between LU and NU
Landcape Urbanism New Urbanism
Travel Short distances: cycling, walking. Long distances: No alternative offered, habit remains unchallenged.
Provides alternatives such as trains, busses, cycling.
Work Separation of functions: work mostly takes place in a different area.
Mixed use promotes working in same area.
Leisure Large potential for extensive recreation (walking, cycling).
Large potential for intensive recreation (scating, museums/cultural activities).
Shopping Mostly accessible by car, big shopping centres and malls.
Walking distances, small shops and alleys.
Gardening High potential. Spacious gardens. Possibility for food self-sufficiency.
Low potential. Only small roof gardens and little chances for food production.
Social contacts Low daily interaction between inhabitants due to distances. A more rural life.
Vibrant city life. Also: rushed city life can flatten social relations.
Results: The social practices are individually rated on a Likert scale (Likert, 1932). The accuracy of
using five levels, from -- to ++, represents the results of this study well so no false sense of
precision is given. Table 2 shows the rating on a Likert scale. It is important to keep in mind that not
the quality or quantity of the social practice is measured but how much the actor is challenged to
change its behaviour.
The results display each social practice as equally important. The rating of the different
practices however tends more towards a political and ideological preference than a scientific
judgement. E.g. is growing your own food better than only travelling by public transport? The result
of this research contains to overcome this problem a “neutral” outcome (every social practice is
equally important for green living) and an expert judgement (some practices are more important
than others).
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Clarification of the scale:
-- (1) Unsustainable behaviour is amplified
- (2) The lifestyle of the actor remains unchallenged.
o (3) Nudging in a sustainable direction, but very permissive.
+ (4) The actor is actively pushed towards sustainable behaviour.
++ (5) Sustainable behaviour is the most desirable option, demotivates unsustainable behaviour.
Table 2. Rating of the social practices
Landscape Urbanism: New Urbanism: Expert judgement:
Travel -- + 20%
Food consumption + o 25%
Leisure O + 15%
Work - o 5%
Shopping O + 10%
Gardening ++ -- 15%
Social contacts - ++ 10%
The average, “neutral” score of Landscape Urbanism is a 2,9 and the average score of New
Urbanism is 3,4. This means that the New Urbanism paradigm steers 10% more towards sustainable
behavioural change.
The weighted results show the same trend: Landscape Urbanism scores 4,3 points and New
Urbanism 4,8 points. The full table with the numbers used to calculate the results can be found in
the appendix.
Conclusion: Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism both have their strong points when it comes to
alter urban lifestyles into sustainable living. The strong points of Landscape Urbanism in this
context are: re-establishing the human-nature relationship and providing space for local initiatives.
New Urbanism has a strong approach in altering the travel behaviour of the actor, increasing the
social connectedness and lowering the impacts of the behaviour.
A selected list of social practices is rated for both paradigms. New Urbanism scores in the
weighted and unweighted results significantly higher which means that the concept of New
Urbanism, when applied, does provide a better framework for change in the behaviour of the actor.
It is important to note that both paradigms have their strong and weak points and that there is
no “ultimate urban form”. It is recommended to investigate whether it is possible to combine the
best parts of Landscape Urbanism with the best parts of New Urbanism for a new urban typology.
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Discussion: This paper only takes the social side of both development strategies into account. The other
factors that are just as important such as CO2 footprint, ecology, aesthetics, energy production and
consumption, soil conditions, cultural preferences and technical barriers are not included.
Another way of looking at New Urbanism vs. Landscape Urbanism is through the lens of
economics. In the housing market people vote with their wallets and the attractiveness of a certain
lifestyle is reflected in the willingness to pay for a house in a particular neighborhood.
The effort needed to make a Landscape Urbanist or New Urbanist neighborhood function. It
is far easier to built detached houses and sell them with the surrounding land than building a high-
density, mixed use neighborhood which still has to develop its main selling point: the social
cohesion and liveliness. The economic risks are likely to be lower for building “urban sprawl”. In
this report the focus was to see which of the systems of provisioning better suits the demand of the
actor, not to see which system of provisioning is more effective (cost/benefit) in its execution.
The positive steering is more common than the negative steering in both Landscape
Urbanism and New Urbanism. This is can be partly explained by the fact that in a free market
different developments have to compete to attract enough buyers. The more drawbacks are
implemented in the design (roads with dead ends, lack of facilities), the more risk the developer of
the site takes. Therefore both paradigms mostly aim at promoting green behavior, not at forbidding
unsustainable behavior.
The change in the lifestyle component is closely linked to the concept of “habitus” as
developed by Bourdieu (2002). This could be implemented as a time component within the analysis.
It is imaginable that some habits are easier to change than others. Because the different adaptation
rates for these practices are unknown the factor time is excluded in this research. It is assumed that
“sooner or later” actors will choose for the most advantageous option. Further research is needed to
determine whether one scenario outperforms the other within a particular timeframe.
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