It Takes a Village

May 31, 2006 — -- If you think that to live in a community where you have everything at your fingertips you have to spend a fortune, think again, because now developers have geared their planned communities not only to the super wealthy but also to those who perhaps can spend as little as $200,000 for a home. They've even targeted people in the market only for a rental.

"Urban sprawl is out. Those that have suffered under urban sprawl want to move to vibrant places. They're exiting their gated communities," said Steve Maun, president of Leyland Alliance and executive board member of the National Town Builders Association. "Now we're building towns and cities just like those built prior to World War II. This type of sustainable living by design can be changed over time as needs change."

Maun said the sprawl that has spread around so many cities, where residents have to get in their cars to do anything, is not sustainable.

In some places you can leave your gated communities and embrace urban living for a mere $200,000. Maun said he's upset that the notion of town center has been misconstrued and connected to luxury living at a high price.

"This is not about building a new town center. It's about taking old infrastructure and bringing it back with a broad spectrum of living that has a variety of price points," he said.

In these new developments, called dense living communities, you might start by first renting an apartment, then buying an apartment, then a town house and finally a larger detached house.

One of the foremost new urban developers, Andres Duany of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., a Miami architecture and planning firm, has created 150 planned communities, some hitting that broad spectrum of price points. Duany agreed that the concept of town centers being only for the wealthy is wrong. The reality of dense-style living is in fact the opposite; it fosters diversity in one community by having affordable price points and encouraging people to get in by renting, he said.

"We have an obsession with ownership that the rest of the world does not have," Duany said.