Crossroads, Hamlet, Village, Town: Design Characteristics of Traditional Neighborhoods, Old and New

The first edition of this best-selling report by Randall Arendt, published by PAS in 1999, broke new ground by offering specific design guidance to planners, developers, and others involved in laying out, regulating, and reviewing proposals for traditional neighborhoods—new villages, hamlets, and subdivisions that are an exciting, greener subset of conservation design.

Like the first edition, this extensively and beautifully illustrated report addresses many particulars of residential site design and the use of open space, parks, squares, greenways, and greenbelts. It provides detailed and tested development guidelines for the broad area of development concerns that exists between macro (i.e., zoning) and micro (i.e., window placement) issues.

What's new in the revised edition? The ordinance and subdivision regulations in Part 3 have been fully revised to make them easier to implement. In addition, the accompanying CD-ROM has illustrations directly tied to the provisions of the regulations. The author's voice-over on the CD-ROM, which provides a running commentary on the regulations, adds a level of explanation that is a valuable enhancement to the report.