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| 16 July 2003
/ SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE NEW
URBANISM |
“Towns were the nursery of freedom.”
—Lord Acton
| 1. ACTON COMMENTARY |
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“The
New Urbanism—Can it Survive the Company it Keeps?”
by Phillip W. De Vous
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 With
its aim of making—or remaking—cities
on a human scale, the New Urbanism movement is
winning adherents across a wide spectrum of political
sympathies. But, as Public Policy Manager Phillip
De Vous points out, the New Urbanism may be a
ripe target for hijacking by anti-growth, anti-sprawl
advocates. Beware of the “Portlandization”
effect.
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| The
Acton Institute is funded through the generous contributions
of individuals such as yourself. |
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| 2. THIS WEEK AT THE ACTON BOOK SHOPPE |
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Journal of Markets & Morality Volume 6, Number
1 (New)
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Containing a controversy and two articles on the New
Urbanism, the latest issue of Markets & Morality
explores this emerging city planning movement from both
a theological and a free-market perspective.
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| 3. FOOD FOR THOUGHT FROM ACROSS THE
WEB |
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“Market-Oriented
New Urbanism” by Chris Fiscelli, Reason Public
Policy Institute
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Chris Fiscelli advises supporters of the New Urbanism
to distinguish themselves from the policy positions
of smart growth advocates. He says, “Contrary to
popular belief, smart growth critics do not necessarily
have a distaste for the New Urbanism and its design,
but rather the promise (or threat) of a neatly packaged
set of voluminous design specifications that will dictate
all development in every city.”
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“Broken
Cities: Liberalism’s Urban Legacy” by Steven
Hayward, Policy Review
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According to Steven Hayward, federal government interference
in local government policy played a large role in the
disintegration of the American city. Writes Hayward,
“While social scientists talked of treating the
'root causes' of urban problems with 'bottom-up' policies,
the federal government reached down into local neighborhoods
with top-down policies that displaced local residents
and institutions.”
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“The
right attacks smart growth and New Urbanism,”
New Urban News
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In this April/May 2003 edition of New Urban News
readers are advised to beware of “free-market exponents
[who] are prepared to smear smart growth and New Urbanism.”
The article reads, “A national attack on smart
growth and New Urbanism is under way—organized
by libertarian and free-market ideologues and led by
economist Randal O’Toole.”
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Charter
of the New Urbanism, Congress for the New Urbanism
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Read the New Urbanism Charter for a general
overview of the aims of the New Urbanists. A visual
tour is also available from the Congress for the
New Urbanism.
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| 4. IN THE LIBERAL TRADITION |
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Johannes
Althusius (1557–1638)
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“A community of citizens dwelling in the same
urban area (urbs), and content with the same
communication and government (jus imperii) is
called a city (civitas) or, as it were, a unity
of citizens.” Politica,
chapter V (constitution.org)
In his Politica,
Althusius contends that cities have their own rights,
not to be infringed by higher orders of society. In
fact, he speaks of “the autonomy of the city,
its privileges, right of territory, and other public
rights that accompany jurisdiction and imperium. Even
a city recognizing a superior can have these rights
by its own authority (jus), and in other things
be subject to its superior magistrate by fixed covenants.”
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| 5. ON THE CITY: QUOTABLE |
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“Of all forms of liberty, that of a local community, which
is so hard to establish, is the most prone to the encroachments
of authority....Without local institutions a nation may give itself
a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville
“The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an
earthly peace, and the end it proposes, in the well-ordered concord
of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of men's wills to
attain the things which are helpful to this life.”
—St. Augustine of Hippo
“It is the peculiarity of man, in comparison with the rest
of the animal world, that he alone possesses a perception of good
and evil, of the just and the unjust, and of other similar qualities;
and it is association in these things which makes a family and a
polis.”
—Aristotle
| 6. EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES |
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