Thursday, March 27, 2008

Metro Pulse Commentary: Old Urbanism, "Encouraging community on the fairway or by the expressway


Commentary

Old Urbanism

Encouraging community on the fairway or by the expressway


Ordinarily, I don’t follow the news out of Oak Ridge, so if a friend hadn’t sent me a link to the article in the Oak Ridger, I might have missed out on a rather interesting development. A group of developers, according to the article, is about to build a residential community on The Atomic City’s old South Hills golf course. But the real surprising part is that, rather than build a few high-dollar houses overlooking the bunkers, greens, and tees, they’re getting rid of the golf course altogether. In its place, they’re laying out a traditional neighborhood development along New Urbanist principles, mixing a dense grid of single-family homes and townhouses around a small commercial core. And, while the old-fashioned, dense development model does leave a large amount of the site as open green and recreational space, there’s not, best I read the plans, so much as a par four in sight.


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