Beyond seaside: Knowledge, place and new urbanism

New Urbanism continues to present a distinct challenge for research in Planning and Geography. At once utopian and pragmatic, it evinces an ability to reshape diverse environments by appealing to a relatively stable set of design principles. Theresa Brock Moneo's examination of Seaside shows that New Urbanist landscapes do not result from the application of design principles alone; they are embedded in political, ideological and cultural logics, including notions of tradition and fictional representation that shape our ideas about utopia and our sense of place. While New Urbanism may involve the application of universal design principles and ideas about tradition, in practice, the actualization of its utopian designs requires flexibility in managing different place-based contexts, including existing constituencies, institutions, built environments and cultural knowledge. Viewing phenomena like collective memory as objective knowledge rather than subjective experience could aid research into how New Urbanism engages participants in its utopian project within a variety of institutional environments.