"Five Steps Towards a New Suburbia," a new report authored and produced by The Planning Center.

Executive Summary…

The vast majority of our growing population (now 300 million strong), now live and will continue to live in the suburbs. In our first publication, The New Suburbanism: A Realist’s Guide to the American Future, we challenged ourselves to develop pragmatic ways to improve the places most of us have chosen to call home. To meet that challenge successfully, we must consider strategies that address all of the moving parts that make up our communities. The essence of our approach can be defined as “New Suburbanism”: a philosophy of planning, design, and development that aims to coordinate and improve all of the complex elements that make up a community.

 

In Five Steps Towards a New Suburbia, we focus on the critical elements of community—economic, environmental, physical, social, and governmental—and present five practical examples or “steps” that communities can take to enhance their own suburban experiences. The ideas expressed in this document do not reinvent the wheel or introduce a new paradigm; rather they reemphasize the need to apply a holistic approach to the design and evolution of our new and existing neighborhoods…

The complete article can be found at…

http://www.planningcenter.com/whatsnew/documents/FiveStepsFINAL.pdf