Neotraditional Development--Wisconsin Style?

Disney's doing it. Mainstream "home design" magazines are writing about it. Not surprisingly, once neotraditional development became this "mainstream," Wisconsin would be doing it, too.

Neotraditional design (aka traditional neighborhood development, new urbanism, and transit/pedestrian--oriented development) has been written about since the 1960s when Jane Jacobs argued that cities ought to be built as they were in the early part of the twentieth century. In the 1980s, these ideas were extended and popularized by Peter Calthorpe and the design team of Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andres Duany.

Neotraditional design has been touted as offering both a more livable and alive community for residents. Neotraditional design has been promoted as more sustainable since it preserves land by encouraging more compact development and reduces air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions by creating new opportunities to walk and bike rather than using a car.

Until recently, most of the planned and built examples of neotraditional design were on either the east or west coast. Laguna West in California (Calthorpe), Seaside in Florida (Duany and Plater-Zyberk), Celebration (Disney) in Florida, and Kentlands in Maryland (Calthorpe) are among the most well-known of the neotraditional projects that have sprung up in recent years.

Though the jury is still out on whether these developments fulfill their promise (mixed-use, mixed-income, reduced auto use, increased sense of community, etc.) the idea is taking root. Increasingly, neighborhoods are being planned to look (and work) more like early twentieth-century streetcar suburbs and less like the auto-oriented suburbs of the post-war period.

The fall conference will give participants the opportunity to see how these ideas are taking root in Wisconsin communities. Carolyn Esswein (Planning Design Institute and UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning) and Jean Werbie (Director of Community Development for Pleasant Prairie) will present the lessons that planners and designers learned in planning a neotraditional town center and neighborhood in the growing suburban community of Pleasant Prairie outside of Kenosha. Eileen Kelly (planner for Middleton) will discuss the implementation of neotraditional development in Middleton, where Middleton Hills is currently under construction. Paul Brunsell (Project Manager for Middleton Hills Company) will assess the Middleton Hills project from a developer's perspective. Then Kerry Van Dell (UW--Madison School of Business) will look at the Wisconsin real estate market as it relates to neotraditional-style developments.