Digg This
Talk Back
Post a Comment
|
HousingZone Most Popular Stories
- Home Mortgage Rates Set to Move Higher Next Spring
- Tax Credit Extension to Give Housing Recovery a Boost
- Design Challenge Winners Tackle the Multigenerational Household
- The Energetic Discipline Behind Professional Builder's Builder of the Year
- What remodelers need to know about the new lead paint rules
- Remodelers Tighten Up Labor Costs to Stay Afloat
- Use abandoned phone numbers to boost remodeling business
- What Today's First-Time Buyers Want in a New Home
- 100 Best New Products 2009
- Remodeling market down, but remodelers expect recovery
The Evolution of Master-Planned Communities
Examples of the past create a different road map for community making in the future.
By Randy Jackson and John Martin
January 1, 2005
Professional Builder
The end of World War II marked a watershed, not only in global geopolitical relationships, but in the development of the American community as well. For over a decade and a half this nation had struggled with an unprecedented economic melt-down followed by a battle for survival of the free world as we knew it.
Nowhere was the echo of that memorable era more at play than in the postwar dominance of suburban development throughout the land. The roots of this remarkable explosion of houses on the landscape already existed in the small towns and urban neighborhoods that defined the American living environment. But never had an impetus for the scale and rate of change occurred as it did in the post-war era. It is still with us.
For much of that period we simply tried to keep up. Yet, the pace of change and volume of development sometimes tends to obscure what we have learned from all of the subdivisions, site plans and planned developments launched, processed by local governments and experienced by generations of Americans.
Though the list of examples offered here is intentionally brief, their net contributions to the art and science of community building is remarkable. It is important to note that good ideas — new ideas — often appear in parallel, not in sequence. Many development-related issues pop up in a number of areas at the same time. In addition, those of us in the planning and development field are legendary borrowers of good ideas.
The Meaning of it All
Ours is a constantly evolving laboratory that spins off notions of community in seemingly endless combinations. Let's look at some of our favorite examples and see what they reveal. In infinite combinations we are making and remaking America. Redevelopment occurs in suburbia now. In parallel with that process, master planned communities function as laboratories in community building as well. Market economics — measured in dollars and in environmental stewardship that is priceless — are both finding ways to be well-served. The communities featured here demonstrate the wisdom of both — for today and for the future.
Randy Jackson, President of The Planning Center, a Costa Mesa, California-based multi-disciplinary planning firm, has designed and managed nearly 200 master plans, over the course of his 35-year career. John Martin, President of Martin & Associates LLC, a Newport Beach, California-based strategic marketing firm, developed 33 value-based Guiding Principles, Strategies and Success Elements to create a shared vision for communities and neighborhoods of the 21st century.
© 2009, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
