A lot of 'new urbanist' communities are anything but. They're more rejigged and mildly improved suburban communities with a veneer of small-town nostalgia applied over top. Many have been designed as masterplanned communities so their separation from the surrounding communities, especially in the United States, is pretty common.
As for why this is, I think a lot of the people who were advocates for this kind of design and who are leading firms that are designing these communities are still deeply rooted in older (sub)urban systems, and especially the status quo of detached houses, home ownership, and personal vehicles. This is also more palatable to clients/companies and jurisdictions that are comfortable with building suburban communities, where they're seen as suburbs+ or towncenter+ rather than bona fide urban communities.
Real urban communities tend to be messier and more chaotic, which runs against the corporate ethos that pervades much of new urbanist discourse.
There can be big differences between developments that advertise as new urbanist developments and new urbanist as a school of thought. And in practice "the American system" is built for producing sprawl. So even the most well intentioned developer can end up whittling away aspects that we or even they find valuable (such as interconnectivity).
And just so I'm not wholeheartedly defending new urbanism, it's a big movement that encompasses many people to various degrees. All to say, some self proclaimed new urbanists are champions of site connectivity, some aren't and are bigger on the aesthetic. It's complicated.
So remember that new urbanism communities are still working within the land development framework, so creating a connected grid is dependent on context. If you want to see a good new urbanist project, look at Stapleton in Denver. It’s a good balance between being responsive to the environment and landscape AND the market (thus the big boxes fronting… Quebec?). Another one is Robinsville in New Jersey. That said, I’m the last one to die on the New Urbanist cross. There are plenty of bad examples.
Stapleton's streets look pretty weird to me to. Look at the area around Wicker Park...that's just a glorified cul-de-sac. And again, very few entrances into the actual neighborhood.
It just seems to me like the designers are being too cute by half and that a standard grid or something close to it would just be better.
I'd suggest doing more than just looking at it from an aerial. Take some time to read about it a little more and look back at the history of the site. Good design is responsive design and that includes being responsive to the environment, to the development context, site history, market conditions, and the like. Stapelton, for example, was a former airport and so had a history of being closed off to the surrounding areas. There was also a lot of environmental considerations that were taken into account in the design. So a cul-de-sac may have been the best solution where you wanted to maintain a continuous greenway. I haven't read [this in depth](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiNnZG01fT9AhXgEVkFHR5zBFcQFnoECBEQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdr.lib.unc.edu%2Fdownloads%2Fmk61rj913%3Flocale%3Den&usg=AOvVaw0m20J7sfoybt3bH3nVckFw) but it look like a good overview.
Here in the Toronto area, Mt. Pleasant in Brampton, North Oshawa, and *maybe* North Pickering are decent examples of New Urbanism.
They’re all compact, but North Oshawa and North Pickering have more amenities within walking distance, however, they’re both lacking transit and stroad infested.
Meanwhile, Mount Pleasant is transit oriented with being right off a GO Station (where the entrance is actually on the sidewalk, not in a parking lot), and there’s a few businesses (convenience stores, 2 restaurants, hair cutters and health services), but lacks grocery stories (so still car dependent) and while the urbanist section is on narrow side streets, what surrounds it is car dependent stroads and development.
A lot of 'new urbanist' communities are anything but. They're more rejigged and mildly improved suburban communities with a veneer of small-town nostalgia applied over top. Many have been designed as masterplanned communities so their separation from the surrounding communities, especially in the United States, is pretty common. As for why this is, I think a lot of the people who were advocates for this kind of design and who are leading firms that are designing these communities are still deeply rooted in older (sub)urban systems, and especially the status quo of detached houses, home ownership, and personal vehicles. This is also more palatable to clients/companies and jurisdictions that are comfortable with building suburban communities, where they're seen as suburbs+ or towncenter+ rather than bona fide urban communities. Real urban communities tend to be messier and more chaotic, which runs against the corporate ethos that pervades much of new urbanist discourse.
There can be big differences between developments that advertise as new urbanist developments and new urbanist as a school of thought. And in practice "the American system" is built for producing sprawl. So even the most well intentioned developer can end up whittling away aspects that we or even they find valuable (such as interconnectivity). And just so I'm not wholeheartedly defending new urbanism, it's a big movement that encompasses many people to various degrees. All to say, some self proclaimed new urbanists are champions of site connectivity, some aren't and are bigger on the aesthetic. It's complicated.
So remember that new urbanism communities are still working within the land development framework, so creating a connected grid is dependent on context. If you want to see a good new urbanist project, look at Stapleton in Denver. It’s a good balance between being responsive to the environment and landscape AND the market (thus the big boxes fronting… Quebec?). Another one is Robinsville in New Jersey. That said, I’m the last one to die on the New Urbanist cross. There are plenty of bad examples.
Stapleton's streets look pretty weird to me to. Look at the area around Wicker Park...that's just a glorified cul-de-sac. And again, very few entrances into the actual neighborhood. It just seems to me like the designers are being too cute by half and that a standard grid or something close to it would just be better.
I'd suggest doing more than just looking at it from an aerial. Take some time to read about it a little more and look back at the history of the site. Good design is responsive design and that includes being responsive to the environment, to the development context, site history, market conditions, and the like. Stapelton, for example, was a former airport and so had a history of being closed off to the surrounding areas. There was also a lot of environmental considerations that were taken into account in the design. So a cul-de-sac may have been the best solution where you wanted to maintain a continuous greenway. I haven't read [this in depth](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiNnZG01fT9AhXgEVkFHR5zBFcQFnoECBEQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdr.lib.unc.edu%2Fdownloads%2Fmk61rj913%3Flocale%3Den&usg=AOvVaw0m20J7sfoybt3bH3nVckFw) but it look like a good overview.
I just looked at Daybreak, Utah - in what way is it "New Urbanist"? It looks exactly the same as any another suburb.
Here in the Toronto area, Mt. Pleasant in Brampton, North Oshawa, and *maybe* North Pickering are decent examples of New Urbanism. They’re all compact, but North Oshawa and North Pickering have more amenities within walking distance, however, they’re both lacking transit and stroad infested. Meanwhile, Mount Pleasant is transit oriented with being right off a GO Station (where the entrance is actually on the sidewalk, not in a parking lot), and there’s a few businesses (convenience stores, 2 restaurants, hair cutters and health services), but lacks grocery stories (so still car dependent) and while the urbanist section is on narrow side streets, what surrounds it is car dependent stroads and development.