what communities in california are considered edge cities and what cities have adapted new suburbanism? (Irvine: real estate, employment)

[the city]

What cities in California are edge cities and which ones have adopted new suburbanism? Thousand Oaks and Irvine come to mind for edge cities. Would Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Cruz be considered new suburbanism communities? Are Irvine and Thousand Oaks also new suburbanism communities?

[Winston Smith]

Do you mean "new urbanism"? If so, consider the City Manager in Ventura, Rick Cole, a true visionary in planning for the "new reality": The Planning Report - Ventura City Manager Rick Cole to California Real Estate Industry: ‘Get Real!’ (http://www.planningreport.com/tpr/?story_id=1407&format=html&module=displaystory - broken link). Downtown Ventura is starting to see the transformation. Good changes.

As an aside. I heard a talk not long ago by Andres Duany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrés_Duany where he discussed development in Southern California. He cited the Southern California Association of Governments, whose official position on development and transportation is that the only thing that will solve So Cal's traffic problem is mini urban centers. SCAG says that all of the money that they throw at transportation projects, no matter what they do -- widening roads, transit, trains -- will only amount to cosmetic changes in reducing traffic. It's over folks!

Thousand Oaks and Irvine are about as far from "new urbanism" as you can get. Think instead Downtown Pasadena and the Gold Line corridor.

[bhcompy]

What is an edge city?

[mateo45]

Originally Posted by Winston Smith

Do you mean "new urbanism"? If so, consider the City Manager in Ventura, Rick Cole, a true visionary in planning for the "new reality": The Planning Report - Ventura City Manager Rick Cole to California Real Estate Industry: ‘Get Real!’ (http://www.planningreport.com/tpr/?story_id=1407&format=html&module=displaystory - broken link). Downtown Ventura is starting to see the transformation. Good changes.

As an aside. I heard a talk not long ago by Andres Duany Andrés Duany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia where he discussed development in Southern California. He cited the Southern California Association of Governments, whose official position on development and transportation is that the only thing that will solve So Cal's traffic problem is mini urban centers. SCAG says that all of the money that they throw at transportation projects, no matter what they do -- widening roads, transit, trains -- will only amount to cosmetic changes in reducing traffic. It's over folks!

Thousand Oaks and Irvine are about as far from "new urbanism" as you can get. Think instead Downtown Pasadena and the Gold Line corridor.

Good links and explanation, thanks! So do you think that means things like "light rail", etc. are basically "obsolete" strategies now? Just personally, it always seemed like they're mostly "feel good" measures ("we have to do something!"), and never really provided much "bang for the buck".

[humboldtrat]

Originally Posted by the city

What cities in California are edge cities and which ones have adopted new suburbanism? Thousand Oaks and Irvine come to mind for edge cities. Would Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Cruz be considered new suburbanism communities? Are Irvine and Thousand Oaks also new suburbanism communities?

What are you talking about??

[FresnoFacts]

I assume you mean new suburban not new urban. Joel Kotkin and others like to write about new suburbanism.

They have examples of towns using some of the concepts in these links.
http://joe-urban.com/wp-content/uplo...ps%20FINAL.pdf
http://www.lajollainstitute.org/TheNewSuburbanism.pdf

I don't know if you can fully say a city is or is not "new suburban". I am seeing cities adopting those planning elements into both their new growth areas and infill projects.

So a city might be older style suburban in some areas but with new suburbanism ideas being used in new developments.

[Winston Smith]

Originally Posted by mateo45

Good links and explanation, thanks! So do you think that means things like "light rail", etc. are basically "obsolete" strategies now? Just personally, it always seemed like they're mostly "feel good" measures ("we have to do something!"), and never really provided much "bang for the buck".

You're referring to Andres Duany citing SCAG on transportation? L.A. is making tremendous strides in transit and light rail, which are far more effective than building roads, so in that respect are not "feel good" measures in the least. However, the transportation situation in Southern California is projected to spin out of control so drastically in the coming years that putting all faith in transportation projects alone as a panacea for fixing the region's traffic problems won't do much if anything to mitigate the problem. This is the point SCAG is making.

IOW, in the years ahead, the region as a whole cannot add enough road space, buses or trains to support the kind of lifestyle Southern CA is currently engaged in. The only true fix is a "return" to "traditional neighborhoods" -- that is town centers, walking destinations and mixed-use zoning. The idea that Southern Californians will continue to commute from the Valley to OC or from the IE to downtown is just not going to work. Congestion will be so bad that it won't work. And, SCAG claims that there is nothing that can be done about it from a transportation standpoint alone.

[mateo45]

Originally Posted by Winston Smith

You're referring to Andres Duany citing SCAG on transportation? L.A. is making tremendous strides in transit and light rail, which are far more effective than building roads, so in that respect are not "feel good" measures in the least. However, the transportation situation in Southern California is projected to spin out of control so drastically in the coming years that putting all faith in transportation projects alone as a panacea for fixing the region's traffic problems won't do much if anything to mitigate the problem. This is the point SCAG is making.

IOW, in the years ahead, the region as a whole cannot add enough road space, buses or trains to support the kind of lifestyle Southern CA is currently engaged in. The only true fix is a "return" to "traditional neighborhoods" -- that is town centers, walking destinations and mixed-use zoning. The idea that Southern Californians will continue to commute from the Valley to OC or from the IE to downtown is just not going to work. Congestion will be so bad that it won't work. And, SCAG claims that there is nothing that can be done about it from a transportation standpoint alone.

Understood, although it will be interesting to see how the current housing and economic issues will play out in this. And it seems to me that the main dilemma, is that without viable local alternatives for decent paying jobs (at all levels), it will be difficult to wean folks from their often lengthy commutes between suburban enclaves and better-paying urban employment.

BTW, dunno whether you're familiar with Paolo Soleri, the "visionary" architect and creator of Arcosanti, in AZ, who has long had similar ideas and quasi-architectural solutions for human-scaled neighborhoods, transportation issues, and sustainability.

[wburg]

Again, a post by "the city" demonstrates a sort of uncomprehending clueless wonder that nearly borders on genius--I imagine him to exist in some kind of near-Zen state of contracted consciouslessness.

"New Suburbanism" is a term coined by suburban apologist Joel Kotkin, and is obviously a play on New Urbanism. He thinks that suburbs are the wave of the future, and that New Urbanist experiments have been fruitless except for certain features that could be utilized to build future auto-centric suburbs. I'm not sure whether "the city" is referring to Kotkin's term or he really meant New Urbanism, but he probably isn't sure either.

"Edge cities" are places well outside of actual cities that function primarily as employment centers rather than residential suburbs. They are the employment counterpart of the "exoburb," a very remote suburb that is markedly physically separate from its parent city. Industry, California is a good example of an edge city: 80,000 people work there at 2200 businesses, but less than 1000 people actually live in the city of Industry. Thousand Oaks and Irvine are exoburbs, as they are primarily residential, but they are not edge cities. The retail counterpart of these two places is the "power center": dwarfing even modern shopping malls, a power center is a collection of big-box stores so big that you need a car to get from one end or another.

These divisions between workplace, residence and shopping are unique in human history, and are the result of the automobile and the taxpayer-funded highway and road system. Without a big, well-funded government to pay for roads, and cheap gas, all of these cities would die or have to be changed radically in order to survive. Unfortunately, we seem to be running out of both.

Experiments like Arcosanti are interesting, but it seems unnecessary when there are plenty of good examples of mixed-use, walkable, dense but comfortable cities in America's old urban cores--it is, after all, how we used to build cities as a matter of course. It doesn't have to mean big cities, though: there are plenty of good examples in small towns, at least those still sufficiently far from a Wal-Mart that their downtowns have not been totally abandoned.

[the city]

Originally Posted by wburg

Again, a post by "the city" demonstrates a sort of uncomprehending clueless wonder that nearly borders on genius--I imagine him to exist in some kind of near-Zen state of contracted consciouslessness.

"New Suburbanism" is a term coined by suburban apologist Joel Kotkin, and is obviously a play on New Urbanism. He thinks that suburbs are the wave of the future, and that New Urbanist experiments have been fruitless except for certain features that could be utilized to build future auto-centric suburbs. I'm not sure whether "the city" is referring to Kotkin's term or he really meant New Urbanism, but he probably isn't sure either.

"Edge cities" are places well outside of actual cities that function primarily as employment centers rather than residential suburbs. They are the employment counterpart of the "exoburb," a very remote suburb that is markedly physically separate from its parent city. Industry, California is a good example of an edge city: 80,000 people work there at 2200 businesses, but less than 1000 people actually live in the city of Industry. Thousand Oaks and Irvine are exoburbs, as they are primarily residential, but they are not edge cities. The retail counterpart of these two places is the "power center": dwarfing even modern shopping malls, a power center is a collection of big-box stores so big that you need a car to get from one end or another.

These divisions between workplace, residence and shopping are unique in human history, and are the result of the automobile and the taxpayer-funded highway and road system. Without a big, well-funded government to pay for roads, and cheap gas, all of these cities would die or have to be changed radically in order to survive. Unfortunately, we seem to be running out of both.

Experiments like Arcosanti are interesting, but it seems unnecessary when there are plenty of good examples of mixed-use, walkable, dense but comfortable cities in America's old urban cores--it is, after all, how we used to build cities as a matter of course. It doesn't have to mean big cities, though: there are plenty of good examples in small towns, at least those still sufficiently far from a Wal-Mart that their downtowns have not been totally abandoned.

Yes, I know there is a difference between new suburbanism and new urbanism. People differ on which is more useful. I believe new suburbanism will continue and so will new urbanism. Some people prefer larger cities and some prefer smaller cities. Most of the USA is suburban, so more new suburbanism will follow. The major cities and larger cities will incorporate new urbanism and the smaller cities and un-incorporated communities will incorporate new suburbanism.