these ‘clustering’ and ‘pocketing’ styles should be lessthan 400 m or 1,300 feet (six
to eight minutes’ walk time) away from pre-teen schooling, corner shopping, and
a transit pick-up point.
The style of ‘transport oriented development’ (TODs) for a higher density walk-
able suburb (Calthorpe 1992 and 1993) exhibits internal logic, reducing overall
energy uptake and automobile dependency, and increasing sociability, although
in the often-replicated ‘pedestrian pocket’ depiction the outcomes can only be
selectively nodal, leaving the lower-density between spaces stuck without much
in the way of neighbourhoodness! The advocacy for existing urban nodes within
extant suburbs is thus constrained in practice by the limited opportunities for
selection and activation; for example, by the number of stations established along
a railroad easement.
Accessory to TODs are MUDs (Mixed Use Developments) explored, for
the United States context (1987 Handbook) by the Urban Land Institute, which was
followed (1991) by the Porter, Phillips,
Lassar examination of Flexible Zoning.
Mixed usage is a difficult concept to
embrace for auto-fixated suburbanites
willing to drive their cars at any time of
their choosing to another zone to access
their needs and wants. MUDs are in
many ways tradition revisited, and the
principles are sometimes incorporated
into Traditional Neighbourhood Develop-
ment projects.^51 The attraction of mixed
use development is accessibility, without
always involving a car, to a variety of shops and services – a huge advantage
for that half of an average urban population which does not have personal
discretionary use of an automobile. Mixed Use Development can allow the
inclusion of a diversity of household types by income, composition, age cohort,
and class; but also with a mixture of professional offices, artists studios, reception
depots, entertainment and recreation places, motels and small hotels, churches
and other community venues, pre-schools and schools, corner shops, and a
wide variety of home-work establish-
ments. Density and design are the key-
words, and reduced business running
costs the major incentive. Of course a
‘free to locate anywhere’ formula
would be calamitous of outcome for resi-
dential districts, resulting in backyard
(front yard!) auto-repairing, fleet vehicle
parking, massage parlours, funeral
parlours and small processing-plant
operations. Carefully regulated and well-
designed mixed use development is
feasible and desirable, as indeed has been230 PracticeMixed Use Development.
Co-housing.