This insightful article gives a bit of context to the “new urbanist” view.
The cause of this odd mismatch between New Urbanists and old urbanists goes to the root of how American cities are built. The new urbanist’s ideology was forged as a reaction to the suburban built environment as they found it, one urban thinkers have had a small role in shaping. Nearly as soon as they allowed themselves to believe their ideas had created the suburbs, center city intellectuals began a decades-long ineffectual barrage on their culture, form, and aesthetics, while meanwhile celebrating urban life. (Works by Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Herbert Gans, William Whyte fit into these categories.) And suburban growth, minimally or rarely designed by intellectual leaders, barreled on, oblivious to the protestations of critics. The growth was often planned, but by profit-motivated companies and pragmatic municipal governments.
The Origin of New Urbanism’s Persistent Image Problem | Planetizen.
