Suburban Transformation

Smart Growth advocates, environmentalists, and New Urbanists have all tried in their own ways to spread the message of reforming current land use patterns. Their solutions are often criticized for being overly prescriptive, opposed to growth, or nostalgic, respectively. Suburban Transformation offers an alternative to these practices while synthesizing many of the ideas and proposals that they put forth. Five case studies provide fully expressed examples of the process, beginning with a sophisticated system of mapping and culminating in computer projections of likely future outcomes, giving the designer the ability to project changes in the community fabric and adding that knowledge to the designer’s kit of place-making tools.