Description
This book shows you how to combine the best design principles of the past with the technological advances of the present to achieve a more satisfying community environment.
Nelessen advocates design by democracy: involving citizens and public officals in planning and designing their own communities. He describes techniques planners can use to help residents create a common vision. Nelessen has successfully used these techniques—the Visual Preference Survey and Hands-on Model Building Workshop—in seminars and workshops for more than 25 years.
Visions for a New American Dream outlines a seven step planning and design process for creating three basic types of traditional small communities: hamlets, villages, and neighborhoods. Nelessen presents 10 design principles—ranging from humanism and ecological responsibility to open space design and community focus—to help planners and designers turn a community's common vision into reality.
Visions for a New American Dream is extensively illustrated with photographs, diagrams, and maps. This is must reading for all planners, designers, public officals, and citizens who want to envision and direct the future of their communities.
Table of Contents
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Preface
1. The process
2. Definitions and program characteristics
Definition - The design of a small community • Sense of community • The two- three- and four-dimensional community • What are small communities? • Recommended program characteristics of small communities
Step I and II: Understanding the biography of the past-- Analyzing the problems
3. A biography of the past
Introduction • Early suburbs: A positive beginning • Evolution of sprawl 1900-1992-- Why did it occur?
4. Analyzing the past to better plan and design the future
Introduction • Traditional settlement patterns • Four New Jersey case studies
Step III: Creating a common vision
5. Visions for the new American dream: Design by democracy
Introduction • Master planning with vision • The Visual Preferance SurveyÖ • Emergence of national consensus • Hands-On Model Workshops
Step IV: Analysis and application of the potentials
6. Potentials for positive development or redevelopment
Identifying the potentials • The emerging alternatives to sprawl • Potential location for small communities: Locational criteria
Step V: Designing a small community using the ten design principles
7. Designing a small community using the ten design principles
Human scale • Ecological responsibility • Pedestrianism • Open spaces • Core • Streetscapes • Variation • Mixed and multiple uses • Design vocabulary • Maintenance
Step VI: Writing and illustrating codes
8. Revising your ordinance
A model ordinance
Step VII: The submission and approval process
9. Approval process and submission
10. An optimistic future
References
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