Till, Karen E. (2001) New Urbanism and Nature: Green Marketing and the Neotraditional Community. Urban Geography, 22 (3). pp. 220-248. ISSN 0272-3638

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Abstract

A central goal of New Urbanism (NU) is to provide alternatives to suburbs through ecologically sound designs and more natural communities. This article situates NU environmental rhetoric culturally and analyzes why this form of nature is being promoted now. I argue that NU anthropocentric understandings of nature reflect and resonate with dominant mainstream environmental ideas in American culture. To understand why NU planners may uncritically adopt these socially and spatially limited understandings of nature, I discuss the institutional contexts of the planning profession. For various reasons, planners historically have understood nature in geographically restricted ways, as Utopian garden, mappable data, and consumer product. More recently, NU ideals of community have been defined by representations of nature that may be construed by consumers as a form of green politics. This article concludes by stressing the need for further research and advocating more inclusive understandings of human-environment relations in the planning process

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	New Urbanism; mainstream; environmentalism; planning profession; green marketing;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
Item ID:	9027
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.22.3.220
Depositing User:	Dr. Karen Till
Date Deposited:	22 Nov 2017 17:02
Journal or Publication Title:	Urban Geography
Publisher:	Bellwether Publishing, Ltd.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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