Regional and Urban Design Committee

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Who we are

The Regional and Urban Design Committee (RUDC) aims to improve the quality of the regional and urban environment by promoting excellence in design, planning, and public policy in the built environment. This will be achieved through its member and public education, in concert with allied community and professional groups. Join us!

2024 Symposium

The 2024 symposium will be held in Indianapolis, IN in November. Stay tuned for dates and location. Registration will open in July.

2023 RUDC Symposium

The RUDC Symposium, held in Washington, DC October 19-20, covered emerging trends, theories, and technologies that are shaping the future of regional and urban design. Watch the engaging highlight and speaker videos >.

From Promise to Pariah: Single family homes

  • 1.  From Promise to Pariah: Single family homes

    Posted 10-26-2022 03:02 PM

    From American Icon to Pariah? 

    A gateway to freedom or systemic racism?

    It makes up more than half of all US residential accommodations and in many cities it is written into the code as the right and only form to live. It is so much part of the American way of life that most can't see any other. Probably almost all pivotal political decision makers and elected officials live by it. It has described as a bulwark against communism, a beacon of  freedom and liberty and as the perfect place to raise a family. 

    Yet, in a growing crescendo activists and advocates have denounced it as a culprit in many areans:  As a cause of national affordable housing crisis, as pillar of systemic racism, as a leading cause for the wealth gap, as a reason for the excessive sprawl of our metro areas which causes all the congestion and pollution that comes scattered, low density and feeds climate change through CO2 emissions and sealing over spaces that used to sequester carbon.. 

    What is the thing with so much power that it can have such contradictory effects? 

    Something so either totally good or totally bad that folks split so neatly between love and hate?

    Hard to believe: The "it" that has all this divisive power is the single family home. Or, more precisely, and even more mundane, the zoning that enables it. The culprit hides out in a section of municipal zoning code that is  titled "Single family residential", frequently abbreviated as R1. It "has a target on its back" as Harvard professor von Hoffmann puts it.

    How came R1 to be such a powerful hero or villain?

    The history of zoning

    Zoning in general rarely gets much attention these days. It is generally presumed to be the century-old innocent attempt of providing some order in our cities so that slaughterhouses wouldn't wind... READ FULL ARTICLE



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    [Klaus] Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
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