New Urbanism embraces concepts of pedestrian-friendly streets, mass-transit town centers, and a mix of housing alternatives. It certainly seems fitting and worthy of a certain urgency as we find that urban change is not just an option, but a process that is already taking place. It started without us.
Movies, television and commercial developers are already changing our communities to suit their needs. That is not New Urbanism but market penetration. Many of these changes are not helping our cities to develop into hometowns suitable for us to live and raise our children, but to support short-term market operations of large corporate organizations. Big business is almost always an early player in new urban discussions.
Let me introduce to you another player, one many people say began the New Urban movement himself: Christopher Alexander has degrees in architecture from both Cambridge and Harvard. He has taught at Berkley for more than 40 years. He designed the campus of the University of Oregon in the 1970s, and designed more than 200 buildings, and written a number of books. He also created the Center for Environmental Structure (patternLanguage.com) But perhaps his greatest contribution to regional planning opportunities throughout the world is his book:
A Pattern Language. Alexander is listed as being one of several authors of the book but it is largely his pattern which is discussed.
Alexander was born in Vienna and educated in Austria and England. He has always been intrigued by the great cities and special buildings of Europe, Asia and America, and has studied them extensively. He identified certain characteristics he found repeatedly employed in these special places, and he developed them into a “language of design”. These characteristics, he says, are innately recognized by all people as being indicators of “home.” Their value lies, he says not in their being “old”, but in being “timeless”. A Pattern Language calls these timeless characteristics “concepts” and analyzes 245 of them . A few examples are: Holy Ground, Common Land, Small Public Squares, Street Cafes, Corner Groceries, Pedestrian Street, Tree Places, Garden Seats, Sitting Walls. Each concept is discussed in detail, showing problems they solve, how they fit into the larger concepts of the natural world and larger developments and how they help create a capacity within themselves for the development of more specific ideas.
The book moves from the general to the specific. Near the end you will find concepts applicable to specific rooms and parts of rooms like Different Chairs, Pools of Light, and Things from your Life. In the beginning, the discussion is of cities and regions : Distribution of Towns, City and Country Fingers, Agricultural Valleys, Lace of Country Streets, Communities of 7000 People, Four-story Limit on Buildings, Web of Public Transportation and many others.
When my wife and I added a room to our house, we incorporated several concepts from A Pattern Language and created a room that did indeed bring our entire house alive. It has dramatically changed our house and become the centerpiece of our family’s activities in every season. Successful as the construction of the room was, we didn’t even try to implement every suggestion we could have used. Some did not fit our needs and some were not within our means but we felt we learned important lessons from studying all of them.
A Pattern Language, ISBN 0-19-501919-9, is an important tool for anyone who loves houses or cities, especially for anyone who is preparing to buy, build or modify their home. Certainly it is applicable to people who are discussing the future of their neighborhoods, cities or regions. The book has several hundred photographs, hundreds of sketches and drawings, and is in modular format so you only have to read the parts you are interested in. But when you are through with those parts, don’t throw the book away, put it where you can find it quickly. Because once you begin bringing regions, cities, neighborhoods, rooms, or just your own back yard “alive,” you will be back!
Speaking of the concepts in his book, Alexander says: “These tools allow anyone, and any group of people, to create beautiful, functional, meaningful places. You can create a living world.”
Many of the world’s great old cities have had certain areas restored because they are very special places. Now we Americans are becoming aware that our small towns are very special places too. Many of us feel that cities like Asheville and Charlotte deserve not just preservation but the chance to “come alive” and become hometowns where the people there can live fulfilling and creative lives.
Mr Alexander has written another book that I am reading now. “The Nature of Order”. Here he analyzes and tells “why” those magical concepts he numerated in The Pattern Language work. It is a 4 volume offering, and it is worthy of another story. But the Pattern Language will always be the key.
Not this flower. She uprooted herself, destroyed her containers and went off the shelf, out into the world. And she found friendship and companionship everywhere she went - deep, new soil filled with unexpected nutrients. She was exposed to transcendental meditative practices and apparently reached spiritual union with herself. Her roots found rich soil and grew deeply. 
