Architectural, urban design and planning movement that began in the USA in the 1980s; by the turn of the century it had become a highly influential alternative to conventional development practices in the USA and beyond.
In the early 1980s a design and planning movement took root in the USA that proponents described either as the “return of the small town” or as the “next form of the American metropolis.” Architect-planners like Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (see Arquitectonica) and Peter Calthorpe advocated and designed compact, mixed-use, walkable and clearly bounded communities as an antidote to ugly and inefficient sprawl. Although new urbanism designers initially favored traditional architectural styles that reflected local vernacular patterns, as the movement’s principles became more widely applied in urban redevelopment projects, building design styles diversified. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, new urbanism principles had influenced government development agendas in several countries and had become widely accepted as good planning principles....
