Return to the November 2007 Newsletter | Return to the NextGen Site
_________________________________________

First Congress of the Students for New Urbanism
Eileen Murphy

The three day long First Congress of the Students for New Urbanism was a unique educational experience for someone in my position. I’m a fourth year architecture student at Notre Dame, and I had nothing to do with planning the weekend. To tell the truth, going into it I didn’t have any idea what to expect. I took a seat in our school’s auditorium on Friday evening, relaxed, and opened my mind.

Jacob Lindsey, founder of Students for New Urbanism (SNU) started the weekend with an introduction which included the history of SNU. As a landscape architect, he explained some progressive land use and urban planning strategies he puts into practice at his firm.
Lindsay was followed by John Norquist and Emily Talen, CEO of the Congress for New Urbanism, and a professor of urban and regional planning, respectively. Both Norquist and Talen helped us place ourselves in history by reviewing the nearly hundred-year-old tradition of urban planning movements in the U.S. and Europe. We learned of the successes and shortcomings of these movements, and the blatant failures of the way we’ve been building in America during the last 60 years or so.

At this point in the weekend Professor Talen challenged us to take the goals of the New Urbanism movement to the next level. The ‘traditional neighborhood developments’ going up today are beautiful, pedestrian-friendly, and pleasant, but they don’t exactly facilitate the development of diverse communities. Right off the bat the speakers were reminding us that values, morals and strategies are always easier to talk about than to put into practice. It’s clear that New Urbanists are up against a lot, as people are usually reluctant to change the way they live, but if we make an effort not to forget our morals as we design, hopefully this movement will get somewhere.

Saturday I made it to Keith Schneider and John Torti’s presentations before devoting some time to my schoolwork. Schneider struck me as the most optimistic speaker of the weekend. What he said was refreshing—telling us that, in general, the American mentality is changing to support the New Urban movement more and more. Not only are our ideas practical, but some day soon they may be very popular.

John Torti spoke from experience about self-directed education in the professional world. One point of his that stuck with me was the idea that stress from sprawl, Smart Growth ideas and New Urban ideas are all converging to provide us with the opportunity to design “places where full life happens.” The idea seemed to be related to Professor Talen’s call to social awareness, but at this point concrete examples of New Urbanism fully addressing its own lack of social complexity are few and far between.

The weekend ended Sunday with a discussion amongst the students still remaining. We talked mostly about the role and future of SNU at each of our colleges, and I felt motivated to be involved. It was as though the series of lectures from our predecessors gave us the language we needed to communicate our big ideas to each other, and enabled us to think for ourselves with the foundation of New Urban philosophies beneath us. We agreed that one of the most urgent goals of SNU Chapters should be spreading the word and developing interdisciplinary interest in New Urbanism. I felt that our generation is being called to bring this movement to every part of American society. It’s not just for architects, and it’s not just about art. We’re now responsible for urban planning, land use, sustainability, and social improvement.

___________________________________

Eileen Murphy is a Fourth Year architecture student at the University of Notre Dame. She can be reached a emurphy5 [at] nd.edu