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• • • Reprinted by permission of Land Development. Copyright NAHB. 1201 15th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20005 With each passing year, we Ameri- cans consume ever - increasing quantities of land for each new home, office, and store we build. In southeastern Pennsylvania, for exam- ple, the amount of land consumed for development increased by 32 percent between 1970 and 1990 while the pop- ulation decreased by 3 percent. During that same period, land consumption in metropolitan Chicago increased by 46 percent while the population increased by just 4 percent. The greater Seattle area gained 36 percent more residents but used up 87 percent more land to accommodate them. "If American policy makers had de- liberately set out to construct the most wasteful, inefficient and land -con- sumptive pattern of development pos- sible, they could have hardly been more success ul " write _sRAnUll Arendt in Rural by Design, a treatise on building real communities rather than sprawl. As former planning director of the Center for Rural Massachusetts and now at the Natural Lands Trust in Pennsylvania, Arendt has spent years lecturing on techniques to accommo- date development in rural areas with- out destroying the areas' character. Arendt has now put his ideas in book form to aid local planners —both lay and professional —in maintaining the special identity of their communities. Arendt emphasizes that sprawl is the direct result of conventional plan- . But if standards and enforce those BOOK REVIEW Coster the kind of development they want. For example, even something as seemingly unalterable as the design of a McDonald's restaurant can be changed if the municipality stands firm. Freeport, Maine, insisted that the local McDonald's retain a farmhouse for its proposed restaurant and display only a modest sign. As Arendt's photographs demonstrate, the fast -food giant not only complied with the town's wishes but also demonstrated some unusual creativity in the process. Arendt strongly recommends that municipalities conduct a build -out analysis to show exactly how their com- munity will look under current zoning regulations. Residents are usually amazed to fin tat, when fully imple- mented, their local zoning wipes out the scenic landscapes and open space they cherish a— nd replaces such features with waIF--to-wall sprawl. Only when the public is confronted with the inevitable results of conventional zoning can resi- dents be persuaded to plan more astute- ly for the future, Arendt suggests. Americans need to start building pedestrian- oriented towns again, the author says, a tradition that was ar ely aban oned after the 1920s. Arendt de- e prmcip es that guided com- munity design in the late 1800s and early 1900s and notes that such archi- tects as Andres Duany and Tony Ne- lessen are reviving these principles. "What people yearn for these days," he writes, "is not another wave of `real es- tate developments,' but rather the chance to live in a real human settle- ment with a sense o p ace and a sense of belonging." In addition to describ- ing t� he physical elements of a real town, Arendt includes model village design standards from counties in Vir- ginia and Maryland. He argues that municipalities should resurrect the the layout of streets and location of ublic sc paces_, In a chapter on affordable housing, Arendt notes that home prices have _ buildin¢ lots are much larger than ever I oerore. nunaing iess c2LL1UVdYa11c homes on smaller lots can significantly reduce housing costs, Arendt argues. "Attractive but modestly scaled homes built on relatively compact lots during the 1920s and 1930s can be found in every part of the country, providing numerous examples of how pleasant but affordable neighborhoods could be created again," he writes. "The impor- tance of requiring developers to ro- vide sidewalks and to plant deciduous street trees... cannot be overstated." Numerous photographs and drawings illustrate Arendt's points. The author also discusses the use of accessory dwellings as well as Vermont's unique program that links affordable housing with land conservation. In rethinking how we might guide growth, Arendt reaches back to the ideas of early 20th century planner Benton MacKaye, who foresaw the rise of roadside strip development. Arendt embraces MacKaye's proposal to re- strict development along highways and to center it in towns surrounded by clearly defined open space. He notes that MacKaye's approach, which the Maine Planning Office unsuccessfully floated as recently as 1987, could be implemented through a transfer- of -de- velopment rights scheme that would free most highway frontage from de- velopment and place it in carefully se- lected nodes along the way. Most developers will li re with Arendt's contention that conven- tial street widths. Widths of 18 to 20 See OOK REVIEW, page 34 Land Development/Winter 1995 27