Andrés Duany Speaks on Urbanism: 'Urbanism Molts, it Evolves'

…Three near-simultaneous “crises”—global warming, peak oil and the housing bubble—have recently jolted people from complacency, Duany said. And one culprit, according to Duany, is to blame for the current environmental crisis: the lifestyle of the American middle class. “It’s how we consume land, how we transport ourselves, how we feed ourselves and what we do for pleasure,” he said.

But why does he blame the middle class? The numbers of the wealthy are too few to make a difference, Duany said. While the wealthy can commission good design because they work directly with the architect, their numbers don’t add up in what he called a “game” of metrics. “The wealthy are very few,” he said.

Good design can take place for the poor—he cited the work Brad Pitt is doing in New Orleans as an example—but the poor don’t have much of a choice in the matter. “They are so grateful for a door…and a bathroom and a roof over their heads,” he said. Similarly, people who live in areas that have severe housing shortages must “buy what architects decide they should have” because they have no other options.

“The problem with the middle class is that they don’t need the architect,” he said.

But the middle class also presents the greatest opportunity. He urged the audience at the symposium not to “turn away” from the architects of the new urbanism. “What they are trying to do is change the world and they need to connect with the enormous middle class, which is in fact causing the problems,” he said.

Northwest Hub