Designing Our Way Back Home

by Jill Lacefield

When my seven year-old son comes home from school each day, it's only nanoseconds before he is out the door again. Neighborhood friends and hours of play beckon. He can do this because we live in a village, Valley Oaks Village--Chico's cohousing neighborhood of thirty homes, set on five acres of land. Here, homeowners enjoy the strong values of community life and environmental stewardship. And our children enjoy the benefits of safety, a gaggle of friends, and nonstop play.

As Chico confronts the puzzle of how and where to go, it should look at such communities as ours for some answers. Village life--where paths, not streets, interweave among homes, where people truly know each other, and where life has a chance to slow down--is a good life. Even more, a compact urban neighborhood design, based on land and resource conservation, is a move in the right direction for our home town and all of urban America.

The concepts of "new urbanism" and "traditional neighborhood development" are becoming mainstream nationwide. Like cohousing, these alternative approaches return to vital ingredients of cities and neighborhoods past--ingredients that foster a sense of community and that limit urban sprawl. Beginning in the 1980's, forward-thinking architects and developers began searching for ways to reverse the negative track we've been on since the advent of suburbia in the '50's. Suburban developments grew Americans' dependence on the automobile and helped drive neighbors--young and old--into disturbing isolation from one another. Front porches gave way to private backyards and decks. Consequently, families were no longer able to greet neighbors from the front porch stoop, and children, who once congregated easily, now played alone behind tall fences. Alleys disappeared as well, giving way to two-car, attached garages, facing the street. With their disappearance, children lost even more contact with each other, no longer able to traverse the familiar alley ways, playing long hours of hide-and-seek and kick-the-can. And, neighborhood streets--widened to accommodate the increased car traffic of our commuter-driven lifestyle--were rendered unsafe for pedestrians and play. Something else changed as well: the familiar look of traditional neighborhoods. Diverse architecture, celebrating originality and attractive design, was replaced by cookie-cutter rows of virtually identical homes set on cul-de-sacs that prohibited pedestrian travel.

Decades later, homeowners have begun to wake up to what we have created in our love affair with suburban living. Unwittingly, we have designed our way out of community and into urban sprawl. The first hurts the soul; the later, the earth.

Fortunately, however, there is good news: What we design our way into, we can design our way out of. Valley Oaks Village, along with over fifty similar cohousing models across the U.S., is proof positive. So is Doe Mill Neighborhood, a 48-acre development by developers Tom DiGiovanni and John Anderson soon to break ground on East 20th Street. DiGiovanni has researched successful models of new urbanism across the country and has brought the fruits of his effort and vision back home. In Doe Mill Neighborhood, homes and streets are designed to bring people back in contact again. The sidewalks are wider to accommodate pedestrian traffic, and streets--laid out on the traditional grid pattern--are narrower. A network of alleys connect two-car garages, and the homes are a blend of traditional, classic styles with porches and raised foundations. Doe Mill Neighborhood will also include four-plexes with common courtyards and will supersede the city's general plan density requirement at 10 units per acre.

Can we return to the good old days and good old neighborhoods? Not entirely. But we can learn from our mistakes, especially with the help of those with vision and determination. Here in our small town, we're fortunate to have Valley Oaks Village, a five-year success story, to draw from and another progressive model, Doe Mill Neighborhood, on its way. Now all we have to do is put our money on such alternative neighborhood designs that nourish community and preserve our precious land. By doing so, we can surely make a difference--one neighborhood at a time.

This column originally appeared in May 2001 in the Chico Examiner.