Mike Lydon is a blogger who is currently pursuing his Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan. He graduated from Bates College in 2004 and later served as an intern for the Vermont Forum on Sprawl. He grew up on the coast of Maine.
I came across a critical piece he wrote about a new urbanist development near Detroit called Cherry Hill Village. He writes:
“Cherry Hill Village, founded in 2001, is a 338 acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) in the exurbs of metropolitan Detroit. Unlike the rest of the Pulte and Toll Brother residential subdivisions that ignobly dot this once rural landscape, Cherry Hill Village offers an alternative to the single use, auto-oriented, and homogenous suburban “neighborhood.” This is accomplished by integrating many principles of the new urbanism.”
This is the first TND project in Michigan, according to Mr. Lydon. It might serve as planning model for additional communities that are not exclusively auto-dependant.
Yet looking at the photos of Cherry Hill Village, it seems so artificial and contrived. Granted they have pursued the admirable aims of trying to create a community by rigidly specifying design elements such as front porches, sidewalks and street trees. But where is the architectural imagination and daring?
Turns out it may have to do with the corporate polling methods that were used to determine what potential buyers “like”:
“Before sticking a shovel in the ground, Biltmore Properties used a visual preference survey to help them determine the overall architectural style of the Cherry Hill Development. Traditional Victorian architecture common to southeast Michigan was preferred and is therefore consistent throughout Cherry Hill Village.”
Can you picture where our cities would be if every building, bridge or public sculpture were held up for vote before creation? Imagine if Toll Brothers, the house factory corporation, designed one model called “The Lamont” and another called, “The Lieberman”? Which one might win?
As we seek to modify our city in more humane ways, we might be aware that popularity contests are not always the way to build better and more aesthetic towns. Cherry Hill Village is better than sprawl, but way less engaging, authentic and lovely than old Glencoe, IL, Ridgewood, NJ or Concord, MA.
Here in Van Nuys 
I echo Ubray in that I find this landscape Disney-esque. I feel that the “New Urbanist” movement has erred in focusing its energies on new development rather than redevelopment in existing neighborhoods.
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I’ve heard similar criticisms of New Urbanism before to the effect that New Urbanism = Living in Disneyland. All criticism aside, I know some toddlers who wouldn’t odject to this proposition.
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Well, this is why Jane Jacobs ripped on New Urbanism so much. It attempts to recreate through top-down planning the texture of communities that emerged through spontaneous organization. Traditional neighborhoods were built by small-scale developers–and oftentimes by homeowners themselves. What Biltmore does may be more efficient in market terms by minimizing transaction costs, but it creates aesthetic poverty.
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