Abstract

New Urbanist Communities and Traditional Suburban Development
Track: Census and Geodemographics
Author(s): Stephen Sperry

New urbanism has been touted as more environmentally sustainable development than conventional low-density sprawl. It stresses a higher density alternative to traditional suburbs. Using satellite imagery for land cover and impervious surfaces as well as census data, new urbanist developments and low density suburbs were evaluated for their consequences to sprawl. The primary research questions are: Are new urbanist developments affordable? Are there a greater percentage of impervious surfaces in new urbanist developments than traditional subdivisions? Findings indicate that new urban development practices result in significantly higher housing cost than adjacent suburban developments. New urban developments are more likely to have less impervious surface per housing unit, but lower population density because of the smaller family size. The result is a less population in the new urbanist communities than the adjacent traditional suburban developments. The study offers new a measure of sprawl based on population density and green space.

Stephen Sperry
Clemson University
Dept. of Planning and Land. Arch.
121 Lee Hall Box 340511
Clemson , South Carolina 29672
United States
Phone: (864) 656-3635
Fax: (864) 656-7519
E-mail: sperrys@clemson.edu