The Forgotten Art of Designing For Privacy
One of the arguments against housing that is any denser than standard single-family American homes is that people want their privacy more than anything. They say that the American home with their deep setbacks from the road, large minimum lot sizes, and 8 foot privacy fences, that housing developments achieve this.
I don’t know what you think is privacy, but I don’t consider it this…
Two key components of creating privacy are vegetation and topography differentiation (like hills).
But what does every housing development in the United States do? Rip out every last thing that is growing and bulldoze everything to be as flat as they can get it. What a nightmare.
Why do they do this? Well let’s be clear. They do not HAVE to do this. They do this for the simple fact that it is cheaper to nuke the site, turn the land into what can only be related to a blank piece of paper…which they might make from all of those killed trees. Or they will just burn them.
And then throw up as many houses as possible in a single area. All in soul-crushing rows.
And I am not saying that every housing development that comes out of new urbanism will always achieve optimum privacy, but we can get far closer than what the businessmen who want to make the most money possible, come up with. And without the extremely expensive miles of fencing.
And even if new urbanism developments offer no more privacy than these current developments, you will be sure to gain other benefits that will help to outweigh any lack of privacy. Things like community, being able to walk to a coffee shop, nearby parks, local markets and festivals, more quiet and safe streets, potentially a lower cost of living, more beauty, more happiness.
