Building Community: A Tale of Two New Urbanist Developments.

Communities based on "new urbanist" principles have been advocated as a way to strengthen social ties and avoid the social fragmentation associated with urban sprawl. This paper contrasts the application of new urbanist principles in the development of two neighborhoods in a mid-size Texas city: an outlying suburban development and a major redevelopment project in the central city. Both developments occupy about one half square mile or 325 acres of land. They thus provide interesting contrast for this paper. We begin with an overview of the context of urban growth in the city and a discussion of the application of the principles of new urbanism. We use data from the U.S. Census as well as observation and in-depth interviews to compare and contrast the history of the two areas as well as the emerging developments. We discuss our findings in the context of the larger debates on place-building and sustainable urban growth. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]