Three years ago when I first moved down to Denver, I went looking for a dentist as I hadn’t been in some time.  I looked up the providers my dental insurance covered and picked a female dentist that practiced close to my home.  I went to this dentist who told me I needed 3 new crowns, and 7 fillings.  She said it would take around 6 hours to do all that work and said she could offer me sedation for the long time it would take.  I was upset when I came home from that appointment, but I was also something else: skeptical. 

One of the crowns this dentist said I needed was a replacement for a crown I’d had put in two years prior,  so I looked it up (which I do with EVERYTHING).  Dr. Google said crowns usually last at least 10 years, and can last a lifetime.  This got me thinking: how do I know anything she told me is actually the case?  She could make up whatever she wanted about my teeth and just assume I would trust it since she was the trained dentist and I wasn’t.  With me of course, this is dead, dead wrong–I require proof for everything.  So I made an appointment with my old, trusted dentist in Fort Collins and drove up there to have him take a look at my teeth.  Guess what he said?  I didn’t need any work.  None. At. All.

This turn of events deeply shocked and depressed me.  What was more concerning however, was the fact that this dishonest dentist had her wall lined with pictures of the Medicaid kids she treated: how many of those kids got dental work they didn’t need so she could make a buck?  I reported her to the American Dental Association, but I’m sure they didn’t do anything about it.  I haven’t been back to a dentist since.

Recently a new dentist opened in my neighborhood.  Their office is a 5 minute walk from my home.  Multiple neighbors have gone and all have spoken highly of this dentist, so I decided to make an appointment.  When I was on the phone with the receptionist, I gave her my name and we were working out the details of the appointment when she said “Oh, hold on a second, he wants to speak to you”.  The dentist then got on the line. “Hi, I’m Dr. “X” and I recognized your name from [my neighborhood’s] internet board, I just wanted to introduce myself”.  I thought this was really nice and thoughtful, but I also realized something else: this person knows I know everyone in my neighborhood.  They also therefore know if they try to pull any crap like the last dentist I visited that I will tell everyone in my neighborhood and they will lose significant business.  I currently don’t have dental insurance so will be paying cash, but the social capital in my neighborhood is covering something much more important to me: piece of mind.

Anyone who’s been at home with small children for more than a few days in a row knows the truth–it’s boring as hell.  Despite the popular cultural myth that parenthood (especially motherhood) is an all encompassing blissfest, it actually is sheer drudgery most of the time.  Some of this mythos has fortunately been dispelled by mommy bloggers who tell it like it is, but the fact remains–many new moms and dads who stay at home with their kids are shocked at how boring and isolating it can be. 

This is where a new urbanist neighborhood comes in handy.  Getting kids loaded and unloaded into a car (especially if you have more than one) is a pain in the ass, but if you live in most of suburbia, you have to do this ulcer inducing act multiple times a day because you can’t walk to anything.  In a new urbanist neighborhood, you can toss the kids in a stroller, and walk outside to get a cup of coffee, or buy flowers, or just get outside around other people so you don’t feel so isolated.  Or you can walk easily to a pocket park and let the kids run around or dig in the dirt, greeting neighbors along the way. 

Once the kids get a little older, they can have some freedom kids in a sprawldivision don’t have–they don’t have to rely on mom and dad taxi service to get somewhere interesting.  Older kids in Bradburn can easily walk to get ice cream, to 10 different parks, to school, to stores to buy candy and other sundries.  In an isolated subdivision, kids can’t get anywhere on their own–it’s too dangerous because the place is designed for people in cars, not on foot or bicycles. They can’t get anywhere except another street of endless similar beige houses, this deprives them of the ability to develop some independence and skills they will need as an adult.

Now, there is a caveat the this.  New urbanist neighborhoods are perfect for families IF they contain single family homes.  This isn’t to say that families can’t live happily in townhomes or condos, but the fact is most couples with kids want a single family detatched home with a yard (even a small yard)–the majority of construction in the U.S. housing market is single family homes for a reason: demand.  Many new urbanist neighborhoods contain single family homes, but I’ve noticed lately that many new ones coming up–especially transit oriented developments–have only townhomes and condos, no single family.  While the market needs these too, there should be a balance between these and new urbanist developments that offer single family homes–believe me, people will buy them, and once they experience how great it is living in a new urbanist neighborhood with kids, they won’t ever go back to a sprawldivision.

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.

How do you estimate the value of community?

In the United States, we know how to appraise houses.  We can figure out what they are worth based on their physical characterisics: so many square feet, so many bathrooms, so many bedrooms.   The value of individual assets is easy for Americans to figure out and understand.  In every home magazine on the shelf, you see countless fabulous homes with meticulous decorating.  What you don’t see-pretty much ever–is the neighborhood the home is in.  The reason?  Most neighborhoods aren’t anything special because they were built the cheapest/fastest/easiest way possible.  Individual houses are fabulous because their owners care about them, and pour love, money, and attention into them.  This almost never happens on a public scale. The focus in U.S. real estate market is on the individual home, not the wider public sphere in which it exists.  That’s why real estate porn–the shelter mags–sell so well.

I recently read a great book “It’s a Sprawl World After All” by Douglas E. Morris which is primarily about the human social costs of sprawl.  There’s a section that talks about the often unrecognized burden of being around strangers all day long.  Because uses are so separated in sprawl, you have to visit many different places (by car of course) to get your daily needs, which means you can be around people all day who don’t know you.  We’ve created a physical landscape that makes us a nation of strangers.  Being recognized the book says, has a positive effect on our sense of well being and our sense of who we are in the world.  I couldn’t agree more.  I’ve noticed this dramatic effect in my own neighborhood.  I walk out the door to do anything and I always see and talk to many people who know me, and I know them.  It provides a sense of satisfaction and safety that pervades my life in this new urbanist neighborhood.  I firmly believe the thoughtful design of my neighborhood made this possible, there’s a real sense of place here.  (The only negative of this?  If you walk anywhere to do anything in Bradburn Village it will take 1 hour longer than you planned because you stop to chat with your neighbors).

This “sense of place” is composed of a variety of things: a design focus on people not cars, many well designed public spaces in my neighborhood where people go frequently to interact, the fact that all the homes are different so everyone has a strong sense of their space, and others–not just another beige house in a sea of sameness.   This is a priceless asset of my neighborhood, but realtors don’t know how to sell it, people who are used to seeing the same beige sprawl often don’t understand it, and thus the value of this is sometimes lost on people who don’t live here.

I bought that book in the new urbanist neighborhood of Celebration (in Florida) in a little independent bookstore owned by people who live in the community.  While I was sitting there reading, a customer walked in and purchased a book.  The owner of the store said “If you like I can just deliver it to your porch when it comes in”.  That kind of person to person connection, which is lost in sprawl for the most part, is more valuable than all the extra square feet in a standard McMansion subdivision.  

A 2,000 sq foot home with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms in Bradburn Village: $360,000.  Knowing all your neighbors: Priceless.

My mom is the guest blogger today, she’s written a bit about the difference between my neighborhood–Bradburn Village in Westminster, Colorado where she spends her summers–and her retirement community, Pebble Creek, in Goodyear Arizona where she spends her winters.  Why they don’t have new urbanist retirement communities I don’t know.

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I’ve just returned from Colorado where I spent the summer in relative coolness – weather wise and major coolness neighborhood wise with my daughter, son in law and granddaughter.  They live in a new urbanist community and I spend winters in a retirement community in Arizona.  The difference is staggering.

While I have access to two spectacular clubhouses, pools, lap pools, workout rooms, tennis courts, bocce courts, golf courses, a state of the art theater, art studio,  in-house library, video rental and on and on, they have access to each other.

Any  day, I could  step out of the carriage house, my home away from home, and be greeted by a neighbor or two.  I never made it all the way to the pocket park, at the end of the block, without someone greeting me or joining me with their kids and/or dogs.  I loved it. Many times we walked to dinner at the local eatery or strolled to the local ice cream store.  Invariably we ran into neighbors enjoying their porches or just out walking the neighborhood kids and dogs in tow.

If only the developer of my community had thought about this in the planning stages, my community would have been perfect.  As it is, I love it, but I have to drive to the clubhouse to swim or play tennis or to participate in any activities.  I cannot walk to dinner or expect to see my neighbors sitting on their porch.  We don’t have any. We have very nice, beige houses that all look the same on very clean streets that all look the same – not a good idea when most of us don’t remember why we walked into a room, let alone a neighborhood.

I make sure my visitors have cell phones so they can call me when they get lost trying to find my house in the community or when they are out walking the neighborhood and can’t find the way home because every house looks the same.  I also tell them to knock on the closest door and ask the resident how to get back home. 

Without exception, all our residents are friendly and very helpful when a stranger shows up looking perplexed – we are all used to it.  Besides – that’s the only way to meet people in the neighborhood without getting in the car or golf cart.

Neighbor A had a crappy cheap builder sink that was chipped and she hated.  Neighbor B’s husband is a great contractor, can install/fix anything.  Neighbor A had Neighbor B’s husband install new sink, and he offered her a choice of caulking colors.  Not realizing caulking came in colors, Neighbor A selected black for her nice, new sink and was very happy with the results.  Neighbor A saw Neighbor B walking across the street and wanted to let her know what she thought of her husband’s great handiwork, so she opened her front door and yelled out across the street at the top of her lungs,

“I LOVE BLACK CAULK!”

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Said to me at a party:

“Yeah, I left the reservation for a birthday party the other day and I’m never doing it again”

 When you live this close to your neighbors, you better behave yourself

Let me start by saying 95-99% of people are nice, fun, reasonable and great neighbors.  Then there’s the rest.  Every neighborhood has them: the nutbags, the jerks, the clueless, the just plain unpleasant people who bitch about EVERYTHING.  The difference is, in a new urbanist neighborhood (well, at least mine), everyone knows who these people are.  Quickly.  Design that fosters social interaction means people are frequently out in public, assholes included.

My suspicion is, in a sterile, non-interacting subdivision, these people are relativley unknown (unless they are really extreme).  I was discussing this blog post with a neighbor at one of our events last night and she commented that “as long as they mow their lawn, no one will know what an asshole they are” in a non social neighborhood. They can hide in a way–not so in a community that interacts all the time.  I swear a pin can’t drop in my neighborhood without everyone knowing about it in short order.  There are pluses and minuses to this.  One of the pluses is that people who can’t behave themselves in a community move.  A community as social as mine (and other new urbanist neighborhoods I’ve heard) is somewhat self-selecting.  Sounds a little Orwellian, but frankly it works in our favor.  So, if you’re an asshole, do yourself (and us) a favor and move either to acreage, or to a faceless, anonymous beige subdivision where your jerkery will go unnoticed.

Dwell magazine stated in April of 2002, that Prospect New Town in Longmont, Colorado (30 min north of Denver) is the “coolest neighborhood in America”, a statement I wholeheartedly agree with.  Prospect is not just cool, it’s fucking COOL.  There is no place anywhere that looks like it, it’s unique.  There have been some articles written about Prospect, some I’ve written myself, and there’s a great chapter on it in Karrie Jacobs’ book “The Perfect $100,000 House”–(book is highly recommended and Karrie is also the author and editor of the Dwell piece on Prospect).

Prospect New Town is the strangest, most interesting, and most colorful neighborhood in the world I would hazard to say. Started in 1997 on what used to be a tree farm, Prospect is a new urbanist neighborhood that mixes neo-traditional architecture (Craftsman, Victorian, Praire, Farmhouse) with well, crazy bat-shit modern aspects.  Some houses are traditional, some are modern, some are a mix of both. Some defy description. You have to see the place to believe it.  This wonderful, crazy place wouldn’t exist without its developer, who has the perfect name to go with the place–Kiki.  Kiki Wallce. Kiki is, like Prospect, cool as shit. 

 Originally Kiki told me, Prospect was going to be a normal McMansion subdivision (which the city of Longmont turned down for some reason), but then Kiki saw a piece on Duany-Plater Zyberck and new urbanism in the Wall Street Journal when he was flying somewhere.  He said he knew right then that’s what he wanted to do with the land, so he called them up, and they did the planning for Prospect.

The first houses that went in were all neo-traditional and while beautiful, pretty safe.  Kiki and Mark Sofield, the town planner, decided to shake things up a bit and started introducing homes that were strikingly modern.  Apparently some of the original homeowners weren’t expecting to live down the street from angular, wild houses and threw a fit.  I’ve interviewed a lot of people who live in new urbanist communities and they were all passionate about their neighborhood, and all had ideas about what it should look like, so I can only imagine the racket that was raised about some of the new houses–and I can see their point in a way (although I love the modern houses, I can see how they might not be to everyone’s taste). But Kiki–which is one of the reasons I think he’s so cool–didn’t care, which is why Prospect is so awesome. Kiki, unlike most people in the high risk field of real estate, has balls with a B.

Up until that point for the most part, modern architecture and new urbanism did not mix.  There are a few modern homes and buildings in Seaside, but they are far outweighed by the neotraditonal.  Kiki says his mixing the modern in with the neo-traditional didn’t sit well with some members of the Congress for the New Urbanism, but again, he didn’t care much what other people thought, even the “experts”. And lucky for us, because now we have Prospect. So, to the review:

Downtown Portion: Excellent. Prospect’s downtown is a 5-10 minute walk from all homes in the development, and consists of a series of funky, modern, BRIGHTLY painted 3 story buildings (BRIGHTLY means yellow, orange, neon green, periwinkle).   First floor retail, 2nd and 3rd floor office and residential.  There are some very fun shops in Prospect, including my favorite–House Gifts and Decor, a fun home store.  The downtown also has Solar Village, which is neato–a mixed-use building 100% powered by renewable energy.

Architecture (how non-cookie cutter): Prospect is the hands down winner in this category, even counting every single new urbanist community in the U.S.. No house is the same, and many are spectacular colors. The older part of the neighborhood has more of the traditional architecture, and the newer part more of the modern. The only comment here really is the price.  Because the houses are unique, they are expensive.  Right now you can’t get into a single family home for less than $450K (and that’s down because the market sucks).

Parks: Prospect has a few parks and for the most part they’re OK, but nothing special.  They are putting in what looks like a really fun playground, but I have to go back up and check it out.  Knowing Kiki, it’s awesome.

Community: Excellent.  I interviewed lots of people in Prospect, and they all say how fun it is.  They have tons of events formal and informal, and everyone’s friendly.

In short: if you are at all into new urbanism and/or architecture, you must visit Prospect.  It’s at the intersection of 287 and Pike Rd. on the south side of Longmont.

I was talking with a neighbor the other day who is currently selling her house.  I asked her how it was going as the market in Denver is really crappy at the moment.  She sighed and explained many of the people coming to look at her home complained about several different things, and made the very astute observation “people either get it [new urbanism] or they don’t”, which is totally true. 

Purchasing a home is generally the largest investment people ever make.  Investing a large sum of money tends to make people (understandably) highly cautious, they often purchase a home with an eye towards resale: will other people like/buy my home in the future?  Hence the dominance of beige in the suburbs, it appeals to the widest variety of people and is non offensive (but, alas, also crushingly boring).  It takes someone with guts to make the biggest investment of their lives in something different.

I’ve been having a conversation via email for months with a couple who’s interested in my neighborhood, they drove in and loved it, but their real estate agent at the time advised them against it, apparently saying the schools in our area aren’t very good (not true at all) and that mixed-use developments don’t do well with resale (also not true at all, average price per square foot in my neighborhood is $40 higher than the bordering traditional beige neighborhood–that should tell you something!); this bias with real estate agents and new urbanism is encountered again and again–many of them just don’t get it.  The following things are the ones people have told me (or I’ve heard second hand from realtors) that freak potential buyers out about my new urbanist neighborhood.

1. Small Yards.

This is absolutely number one on the list.  Yes, our yards are smaller–most yards in new urbanist neighborhood are.  This is so there is more room for public green spaces such as parks, which you personally don’t have to maintain and in which you actually will interact with your neighbors.  Think about the yards you usually see in vast majority of suburbia, what do they look like, and how much of them really get used? 

Right now we’re in the process of looking at houses close to mine for my sister-in-law, yesterday we went to a couple of open houses in traditional, suburban subdivisions.  They all had huge front and back lawns, and of what?  A large swath of chemical and water sucking Kentucky blue grass lawn that will take ages and significant amounts of cash to mow, trim, water, and feed.  All the yards we saw pretty much looked like grass deserts, totally boring with no character save perhaps a few stunted shrubs or trees.  Now, I know not everyone is a gardener so I’m trying not to be snotty, but why spend a bunch of time and money on something you aren’t really going to use? 

In my prior home in a standard beige subdivision, we had a 12,000 square foot lot. When my husband and I thought about how much of our lawn got actually used, we had to admit the only thing that did get used on a regular basis was our 30 x 30 foot deck.  The rest of the enormous lawn just sucked money, time, and natural resources.  I am frequently asked if I miss having a large yard, and I can honestly answer Not. One. Bit.  Every neighbor I’ve asked about this has said the same thing–small yards free up time and money, and allow you to maintain wonderful little gardens with tons of character.  Bigger is not always better.

The small yard thing seems to always translate into: not good for kids, families won’t want to buy houses there.  Totally untrue.  My neighborhood is predominately families, the yards are plenty big enough for kids to play in, and they have the benefit of wonderful pocket parks all through the neighborhood.  Kids don’t need 10,000 square feet of half dead scraggly grass to have a place to play–I don’t have any grass in my backyard and my daughter entertains herself quite happily on our deck. If we want grass we go to the park which I don’t have to mow, trim, fertilize, or water (well, I do pay for a portion of that with our HOA fees, but I don’t personally have to do anything).

2. The houses are close together.

Houses are closer together in new urbanist communities because of smaller lots, and because of higher density.  This freaks people out.  Yes, my neighbor is close, and no, it’s never been a problem, the opposite in fact.  I actually want to see my neighbors, so it works for me.  However, I am the type of person who would leave their door wide open all day long for people to walk in and out (and this does happen here in the summer) and I love it, I like people around, all the time.  This is not to say I don’t have privacy, if I want it, I just go in the house.  If you aren’t social and don’t want to talk to your neighbors, a new urbanist neighborhood isn’t for you.  There are houses in my neighborhood that ostensibly have owners, but I’ve never actually seen evidence of them.  I don’t get that but it’s a free country.

3. The houses aren’t all beige.

One particularly adventurous neighbor here in Bradburn Village has painted their large farmhouse eye popping canary yellow.  I love it, but one of my favorite colors is chartreuse so that should tell you something. Bright, different colors don’t suit everyone’s taste, and it’s your American right to live in a bland, non-offensive, boring as hell 18 shades of beige neighborhood if that’s your preference, just like when you go to buy ice cream you can choose to order plain vanilla with nothing on it.  Many, but not all new urbanist neighborhood feature strong, bold colors–keeps things from being boring. And my house?  Screaming yellow.

Belmar is another Denver new urbanist community that’s appeared frequently in the press.  It’s an innovative redevelopment of an old greyfield mall in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colorado. 

Belmar is very urban, it’s like a downtown area built from scratch.  Most of the buildings are three stories or more, giving it a nice enclosed feeling.  The architecture is a mix of traditional and modern that works well, especially the lighting.  Belmar has really cool retro lights strung across the main drag, and a cool retro looking movie theater to match. There is also an enormous Whole Foods located in Belmar, which in my opinion, isn’t very well integrated into the pedestrian fabric of the neighborhood, but adjoining sections are not yet complete, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

One very unique thing to Belmar is the Laboratory of Arts and Ideas, a think-tank/cultural center/gallery that is located across from the Foot Locker and Victoria’s Secret.  I can’t help but wonder how many people have wandered into the Lab, looked around, and wondered where all the thongs are. 

Downtown Area: Belmar has the largest and best downtown area of any new urbanist development in Colorado, and I’m willing to bet, probably the nation as well.  There are an incredible number of shops, restaurants, and activities (like a fun bowling alley) in Belmar, and a significant number of these places are independent (although there are quite a few chains as well). Many of the homes are seamlessly integrated into the business aspect–the movie theater for example hosts lofts above it, and one of the condo towers is smack in the middle of retail buildings.

Architecture-how non-cookie cutter?: Belmar currently contains no single family detached homes (a few “modern cottages”are planned but not yet built).  Housing in Belmar is predominately condos, townhomes, and apartments.  I’ve been in the townhomes which are very nice, but being townhomes, are identical, lending a bit of cookie cutter feel.  Overall I think the architecture is excellent in Belmar, and there are some really fun, interesting elements like a very industrial but cool glass elevator tower to one of the parking garages, the aforementioned lights, and a fun plant inspired covered walkway.

Open Spaces/Parks: Belmar has a few small parks integrated into the neighborhood which are very nice, especially in such an urban area.  The best is the area between some retail buildings and the new condo tower which houses an ice skating rink in the winter and concerts/evens in the summer.  It has a really neat fountain in it, and interesting sculptures–and the restaurants adjacent to this open area have really great open air patio areas. The place is always hopping and interesting.

Walkability: Excellent. There are very large sidewalks everywhere, and Belmar is all connected.  Parking is on the periphery in tall parking garages, although there is also on street parking that is metered.
Sociability: I haven’t interviewed anyone in Belmar so can’t really speak to this.  But I wondered if the lack of porches in Belmar would make it a bit less social but don’t really know.  The developer of my neighborhood, Continuum Partners, is also the developer of Belmar, and I’ve asked them if Belmar is as social as my neighborhood and they’ve said no.