Are we "neo-traditional?" ;)
From: Shava Nerad (shavanetwork-services.uoregon.edu)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 23:18:21 -0600
This article is reproduced without permission from today's Eugene Register-
Guard.  It's an AP wire story.  All the typos are mine.

'Friendly' new goal for housing
By the Associated Press

TACOMA -- Talk about going back to the future.  Architects
and developers trying to build a sense of community into neighbor-
hood developments are looking to the past for ways to make it happen.

Lots might be smaller and the homes equipped with front 
portches to encourage neighbors to meet and talk.  Garages are
recessed behind homes.  There are greenbelts and parks, and 
design covenants and codes to restrict property uses.

"The last 30 years of growth have been isolated and sterile,"
said San Francisco architect Peter Calthorpe, a leader in the neo-
traditional neighborhood movement.

"We'll never be able to do the same job as old neighborhoods 
that had 70 years to develop," Calthorpe told The News Tribune
of Tacoma.  "But we're satisfying a basic nostalgia and more import-
ant, people's fundamental needs for stronger neighborhoods."

When Carrie Whalen and her family shopped for a home last
year, she wanted a sociable place with parks, front porches and an
atmosphere reminiscent of pre-World War II urban neighborhoods.
She looked for a community that encouraged walkers instead of
drivers -- like the Tacoma neighborhood she grew up in.

"We all knew our neighbors when we grew up, and we still
keep in touch," Whalen said.  "I never found that living in an
apartment or a duplex."

She and her family wound up at Northwest Landing, a 3,000-
acre Weyerhaeser development, 15 miles south of Tacoma.

"What settled us were the goals for the community," said
Whalen, 36.  "They wanted us to stay and retire."

Chuck Valley and his family have been in Sunrise, south of
Puyallup, since 1993.

"We moved here from a Bellingham neighborhood where there
were no sidewalks and a neighbor who kept piles of dirt in his back
yard with no lawn," Vallley said.

"Here you see lots of people walking around or riding bikes,
and I don't have to worry about someone taking apart their 
transmission on the front lawn."

Neo-traditional neighborhood developments, usually a minimum
of 1000 acres, often are designed to have corner stores within
walking distance and schools and jobs nearby to discourage
lengthy commutes.

"We're trying to make neighborhoods more pedestrian-oriented,"
said Greg Strong, manager of The Burnstead Co. of Bellevue.
He has developed Heritage Park, a collection of 80 neo-traditional 
homes in Tacoma.

"In the old days, when these houses were in vogue, neighbors were
a little more friendly," he said.  "We wanted to create more of 
that sense of community."

About a dozen such communities are planned in the Tacoma area.
Those already in the works contain new homes that cost between
$135,000 and $230,000.
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