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DESIGN OF DENSITY IS KEY, SAYS NEW LINCOLN INSTITUTE BOOK
Aerial photography by Alex MacLean in “Visualizing Density” illustrates land use patterns in America from the dispersed to the dense
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The American Dream of a single-family home on its own expanse of yard still captures the imagination. But with 100 million additional people expected in the United States by 2050, rising energy and transportation costs, growing greenhouse gas emissions due to driving, and disappearing farmland and open space, the need for well-designed density has never been greater, says a new book published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Visualizing Density, by landscape architect and land planner Julie Campoli and pilot and aerial photographer Alex S. MacLean (2007 / 160 pp / Paper / $39.95 including CD / ISBN 978-1-55844-171-2), examines scores of different neighborhoods across the country to provide an objective and comparative view of the many ways to design our future built environment. The book is richly illustrated with more than 1,200 aerial photographs.
Interest in more walkable, mixed-use, and concentrated neighborhoods is on the rise among some demographic groups, such as retiring baby boomers and young professionals seeking transit-oriented development for shorter commutes. But for others, density continues to have negative connotations. In many established urban neighborhoods, concerns about traffic congestion and parking, and strains on infrastructure, schools, and parks have led to resistance to more concentrated settlement patterns.
Campoli and MacLean seek to help planners, designers, public officials, and citizens better understand, and better communicate to others, the concept of density as it applies to residential development. The book grew out of a series of Lincoln Institute courses taught by Campoli and MacLean since 2003. Participants in those classes shared many stories of concentrated developments rejected outright or forced to reduce the number of housing units. The authors concluded there was a clear need for a better way to present density to the public.
“We don’t have a density problem in this country; we have a design problem,” said Campoli, principal of Terra Firma Urban Design in Burlington, Vermont.
Visualizing Density includes an essay on the density challenge facing the United States, an illustrated manual on planning and designing for “good” density, and a catalog noting density in housing units per acre for more than 250 neighborhoods. Four photographs of each location are included—close-up, context, neighborhood, and plan views. This “density catalog” is also on an accompanying CD intended for educational purposes.
Although many Americans associate density with crowding, congestion and even crime, Campoli and MacLean make the case that when properly planned and designed, higher density saves land, energy, and dollars, while creating convenience and amenity. “We tend to overestimate the density of monotonous, amenity-poor developments and underestimate the density of well-designed, attractive projects,” said MacLean, who has flown all over the country photographing development patterns from above.
Additional information can be found at www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/visualizing_density/
About the Authors
Julie Campoli is a landscape architect, land planner, and principal of Terra Firma Urban Design in Burlington, Vermont. She has developed innovative graphic techniques to illuminate land use issues, and has presented many workshops and lectures on issues of landscape change, sprawl, and density.
Alex S. MacLean, a pilot, photographer, trained architect, and principal of Landslides Aerial Photography in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has documented the history and evolution of the land and the changes brought by human intervention in numerous books, journals, and exhibitions.
About the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think-tank based in Cambridge, Mass., sponsors research, training, conferences and demonstration projects on land use, urban planning and tax policy as it relates to land. More information on the Lincoln Institute is at www.lincolninst.edu. For all the Lincoln Institute’s publications, the 2007 catalog is available at http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/PubDetail.aspx?pubid=1216
Advance Praise for Visualizing Density:
“There are plenty of reasons why dense development makes sense, but Americans are supposed to hate the ‘d-word,’ right? Campoli and MacLean show us how we can have it all—communities that are beautiful, affordable: efficient, and environmentally friendly. This book should be required reading for anyone who cares about the built environment.
-- Don Chen, Executive Director, Smart Growth America, Washington, DC
“We have two real choices for future development: We can grow more compactly or we can continue to sprawl across the landscape at great economic, environmental, and social cost. Julie Campoli and Alex MacLean show how to overcome opposition to density by focusing on good design. Through photographs and text they show how two neighborhoods of similar density can inspire either love or loathing depending on the quality of design in the buildings, landscape, and streets. If you want to understand opposition to density and how to overcome it, this book is invaluable.”
-- Ed McMahon, Senior Resident Fellow, Urban Land Institute
“This book makes an abstract concept—density—completely real and easy to understand, to feel. Planning board members, town zoning officials, or anyone charged with figuring out the vexing future of our physical landscape will profit from reading it, and find pleasure, too. It's like looking at Google Earth with someone very, very smart sitting next to you doing the play by play.
-- Bill McKibben, scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont, author of Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (Times Books, 2007) and The End of Nature (Random House, 2006)
For review copies or to arrange interviews with the authors please contact Anthony Flint at anthony.flint@lincolninst.edu
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