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Lifestyle

The Influence of Traditional Neighborhood Design at Kitts Creek

ExperienceOne Homes firmly embraces the ideology of traditional neighborhood design, and we've done our best to make Kitts Creek a reflection of it. Of course, a residential development alone can only achieve a limited portion of the complete "new urbanist" scenario - Kitts Creek doesn't encompass places for residents to work and shop, and it can't alter the surrounding infrastructure of Morrisville and the Triangle area. We also recognize that traditional neighborhood design is not a recipe for instant utopia. It would be foolish to suggest that any community can magically fabricate the world of Mayberry R.F.D. and cure all the complex problems of modern life.

But we do believe a well-designed community can make life better. Within the boundaries of Kitts Creek, we have brought things back to the human scale. The streets are engineered to be walkable instead of just drivable, and the front porches invite conversation and camaraderie among neighbors. The primary amenity features and common areas are located deep in the heart of the community instead of being right at the main entrance, because we're more interested in making them accessible to residents than impressing visitors with a splashy showcase up front. Our homeowners have told us that it really does work. All these deliberate touches have propagated a more open and engaging atmosphere where people feel connected to each other and their community.

This is the reasoning behind the many unusual structural and planning decisions that have gone into Kitts Creek. The traditional neighborhood design principles that we endorse do not represent a "new wave" so much as a return to community-building practices that worked well in earlier times. It's not just a novelty, and it's not shallow marketing capitalizing on nostalgia. Planning departments nationwide are adopting this model as a meaningful way to reverse the socially detrimental repercussions of urban sprawl, in favor of producing a living environment that makes more sense. The ideas of traditional neighborhood design are even entering into law, as town planners around the country and in the Triangle area are proposing "anti-monotony" regulations aimed at stemming the tide of cookie-cutter neighborhoods through enforced diversity.

However unconventional Kitts Creek may seem upon first blush, this is not a niche community or part of some passing fad. By its plainly diverse and eclectic nature, Kitts Creek is intended to meet the needs and aspirations of a broad demographic spectrum, from young professionals and families with kids to retired couples, which is the essence of community. Kitts Creek is on the vanguard of an emerging movement in real estate development that won/t seem quite so atypical in the next ten or fifteen years - a new convention that reclaims the smart thinking of old, and boldly puts the neighbor back in neighborhood.



To learn more about traditional neighborhood design, visit
www.newurbanism.org or www.newurbannews.com

Nationally recognized successes in traditional neighborhood design: