One of the most compelling aspects of the New Urbanism is its recognition that the spatial ordering of uses in our urban environment has such a profound effect on our social, economic, and civic life.  What we have learned from the suburban model of automobile-scaled aggregates of single-use zones is that they have had a profoundly negative effect on the quality of our lives —most disproportionately on the lives of women, the economically and physically disadvantaged, the elderly, and children.

The conventional suburban practice of separating land uses by "zones" is the legacy of early industrial workplaces that were once of genuine concern to public welfare. Today, since most industry and commercial activities are benign, few industries need to be separated from other uses. That this approach remains institutionalized in zoning ordinances nationwide overlooks the importance of the natural integration of daily activities. The model of creating a fine-grained mix of uses, with civic, institutional, and commercial located within easy walking distance of each other, provides the greatest accessibility of daily activities to the greatest number of people.

At the scale of the neighborhood, the current model of suburban sprawl is designed to best serve the affluent single adult.

The isolation of most uses in large single-use complexes makes them all but impossible to access by foot and has led to the average person today making 12 car trips daily for work, schools, and shopping.

The numbers of hours spent in the car are much higher for women, who are most often required not only to work, but also to shuttle children to school and activities while doing most of the household shopping. A reduction of daily car trips is essential to give us all enough time in the day to handle the needs of working, raising a family, seeing friends, giving spiritual sustenance, and making civic contributions to our community.

Ever larger increments of development have a particularly damaging effect on travel patterns. "Megastores" in large single-use shopping areas often cite the need to lower distribution costs as a way of being able to reduce product prices. This is done by locating fewer stores with greater distances between them. The net effect is that these stores have placed the burden of distribution on the watch and gas pedal of every consumer. The real cost of this so-called "efficient" distribution model is the waste of each shopper's time and the ensuing soiling of our environment that all of this travel entails.

These patterns affect all of our lives. Children spend far too much of their time in cars and are unable to be self-reliant users of their environment.  The elderly suffer from their inability to remain independent and able to carry out the functions of their daily lives on their own. With very few exceptions, those who do not have the means to own a car find themselves victims of long hours spent in inadequate public transportation systems.

At the scale of the region, the suburban model of isolated zones becomes even more debilitating. With workplaces disproportionately located in city centers and residences mostly located at regional edges, the daily auto commutes for some have reached 100 miles each way, requiring commuters to spend five hours a day behind the wheel.

The oft-bemoaned "loss of community" is only one small price that we all pay for the time we spend isolated in our cars for hours on end. With working parents so far removed from their jobs, children often suffer up to 13 straight hours of day care. Teenagers at home alone are contributing to the rise of gang activity. The effect on families working so far away is mostly fatigue and frustration. However, it has also dissolved marriages, unraveled families, and led to incidents of domestic violence and child abuse, often at rates twice as high as in areas where the distances between home and work are far less. With broken families often come homes being lost. These trends are leading to some of the nation's highest rates of foreclosure and abandoned homes.

At the same time, large concentrations of housing in areas far removed from workplaces and shopping have led to empty neighborhoods during the day that are easy prey for thieves and vandals without the "eyes on the street" that would contribute to safety and security. Moreover, a recent study by the American Farmland Trust has found that emergency response times in large-lot subdivisions far exceed national standards.

Children are the group that suffers most under our current suburban land development patterns. Our cities and towns should be scaled to their use. For children, a strong sense of self-esteem and self-respect develops from their ability to accomplish tasks in a free yet supportive and safe environment. The neighborhood life of a child should be part of a child development continuum based on the individual's self-initiated ability to accomplish his own daily needs.

Children should be able to freely access their environment to meet their needs without depending on others to take them places by automobile. They should gain independence within an environment where they are accountable to others under the rein of both parents and the larger community. Mixed-use streets properly designed with major windows and doorways facing the public right-of-way provide the eyes-on-the-street security that enables a safe environment.

The quality and character of schools is very often cited as the primary reason families choose their place of residence. Sizing schools to the neighborhood reinforces the neighborhood structure and induces greater parental support with the school by making it even more tied to its community. Schools also act as an important community focus. They can form the heart of a neighborhood center with other complementary uses around them, such as day-care centers, parks, grocery stores, and telecommuting centers. As such, they should be easily accessible to those who use them. Elementary schools should be sized to accommodate the walking population around them; high schools should be sized to accommodate the bicycling population around them.

The late architect Aldo Rossi, who can be credited with renewing our interest in the city as a physically designed object in its own right, produced many schools early in his career. However, many of these schools were located out in the countryside. Rossi believed that the city had an important symbolic function as a pedagogical tool. It is now time to make the real cities not merely symbolic but actual pedagogical tools. And, with a reversal of Rossi's ordering system, schools and other civic buildings need to play their time-honored role of informing and representing society's values—deeply embedded in the hearts of our cities.

Originally published in the Charter of the New Urbanism, 2000