QUANTIFYING THE QUALITATIVE: VALUE AND THE CREATION OF PLACE THROUGH URBAN EVOLUTION

Abstract

Since WWII, there has been a severe disconnect between the intentions of written zoning ordinances and their resulting physical environments. Such codes and ordinances must reflect the observations of these results. The SmartCode provides a prescriptive solution; however, very few quantitative studies exist that justify its implementation.

If the current trend of using such rigid and formulaic zoning methods is to continue, then such standards must be humanistically based and not based solely upon abstract economic and engineering calculations.

This study sought to demonstrate that New Urbanist development has social, economic, and environmental benefits that can not be obtained by conventional suburban development through a quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. Although the results of this study did not prove definitively that many of these criteria can be objectively measured, it has proposed numerous promising methods that require additional research in order to test their efficacy.