Before Bradburn Village was built, our developer, Continuum Partners, had a company conduct a marketing study on what demographics would be attracted to a higher density, walkable mixed-use neighborhood smack dab in the middle of standard Denver suburban sprawl.  This study apparently concluded that families wouldn’t really be into Bradburn (I’m unsure who they thought would be–DINKs and retirees I guess).   This is a common misconception about new urbanisim–families don’t want it, they only want single family homes on huge lots seperated from their neighbors, with a backyard that will fit a full size trampoline and play set their kids will use a few times a year.  

Bradburn Village certainly refutes this theory, after sales started our developer realized the market study was wrong–90% of the single family homes (all with much smaller yards than a standard subdivision) were purchased by families, mostly families with young kids.   Continuum–to their credit–altered the plans for our community pool to include a kid pool in response to the surprising demographics of the new urbanist neighborhood they created.

As I–and all my neighbors with kids–have found, new urbanist neighborhoods are the IDEAL place for kids for several reasons.  First, the design of the neighborhood fosters social interaction so you know your neighbors, and they know you and your kids.  I know that if my daughter is out playing, there are a bunch of other adults out there she can trust, and who would help her during an emergency (and all who have my phone number), or who would chastise her if she were doing something she shouldn’t be–and yes, I want my neighbors to correct her if she does something she shouldn’t.

An extension of the social nature of my new urbanist neighborhood–I have help and support from other parents whenever I need it.  When I lived in a standard sprawldivision my daughter was an infant.  I felt stranded on the moon, I didn’t know any of my neighbors and felt so isolated and depressed, I felt like I was all on my own.  It sucked.  Here, if my kid is driving me nuts, we can just walk outside and find other people to have fun with, or I can walk to a neighbor’s house who also has kids so they can play.  In an emergency, the social capital here really comes into play. 

Last year a neighbor’s husband was out of town for work and she was at home with her 3 kids (all under 5).   With the uncanny timing all kids seem to have, two of her kids became very sick with rotovirus and had to go to the hospital.  I got a phone call from another neighbor who was watching kid #3 saying my neighbor with kids in the hospital needed her cell phone charger because she had left it at home.  So, I went over to another neighbor’s house, left my kid with them, took the cell phone charger to the hospital, and stayed to help out until my neighbor’s parents could get there.  After it was over the kids were all fine, and I counted five neighbors who had helped during this emergency.  This is the kind of thing families really, really need, and which is so sorely lacking today in the alienation of standard sprawl (especially since so many people now live far away from relatives).

This post is getting long, so I’ll stop here and continue on this thread next week.