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- Info
Rural by design
| Author: |
Arendt, Randall; with Brabec, Elizabeth A.; Dodson, Harry L. [and others] |
| Date: |
[nd] |
| Periodical: |
Chicago, IL: Planners Press. American Planning Association |
| Abstract: |
This volume goes beyond the first book that our research team produced, Dealing With Change in the Connecticut River Valley, in several important ways. First, it supplies the reader with a great deal of substantive material on a broad range of subjects selected for their relevance to residents and local officials in rural and suburbanizing areas. However, in writing these chapters, the aim has not been to produce a definitive text, for each chapter's subject could have become a book in its own right. Instead, the objective has been to present information most pertinent and useful from the perspective of people working in small town and rural area planning, with an emphasis on design issues and type of material that is not readily available from existing nontechnical publications. Another goal has been to present this information in a very readable manner so as to increase its accessibility to a broad audience, including generalist town planners, their volunteer board or commission members, landowners, developers, land trusts, and local residents concerned about the way that current growth patterns are reshaping and changing their communities. In addition to providing answers to commonly asked questions, this book supplies readers with examples of a wide range of residential and commercial projects that have utilized creative design techniques. These are described in Part IV, "Case Examples," through photographs and schematic site plans, accompanied by brief expository text, showing that viable alternatives to conventional design approaches really do exist and work well. Because so many people have expressed frustration and sadness at witnessing the gradual transformation of their once-distinctive communities into bland, formless, suburban agglomerations of subdivisions and shopping centers, this book contains an extensive section devoted to the "traditional town." It is my belief that these communities will be able to conserve much of their remaining character and "sense of place" only if residents and local officials gain a fuller understanding of some of the basic principles underlying the form and functioning of traditional towns. The challenge is to encourage (or require) new development to complement, enhance, and build upon historic town patterns. Most of the chapters in this book stand alone. In other words, this book is intended to be primarily a reference work to which planners, developers, conservationists, local officials, and concerned residents may turn for detailed information about specific topics, or for examples of well-designed projects to show to landowners and/or intending developers. Anyone reading the book straight through, from cover to cover, will note a certain degree of overlap among some of the chapters. This is partly unavoidable, because planning is essentially an integrated and interdisciplinary endeavor, with many connections and linkages among its various topical areas. A final goal has been to write the chapters so that much of their content will be relevant and useful to people living in a broad range of small communities in various regions of the country. That the Connecticut River Valley "design manual" (now in its fifth printing) has struck such a responsive chord among people from New England and the southern states, to the Rockies and the Pacific Northwest, is evidence that there is a great demand in small towns across the nation for practical information and examples relating to the problems posed by conventional development patterns, which threaten to overwhelm and transform the rural communities lying in their path. |
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