Bringing Back the Neighborhood

By Marc Hequet

On an abandon state-hospital site a few blocks from downtown Cambridge, Minn., New Urbanism has gone country. "People are building a neighborhood," says Father James Hahn, 70, a priest and new homeowner in the Heritage Greens development. The antisprawl design movement emphasizing small homes, spaced tightly in walkable communities, has budded in cities, suburbsand now small towns.

Sprawl plagues once sleepy hamlets, as development follows highways and then builds new housing right to the edge of town. So Cambridge (pop. 7,000) drafted Warren Hanson, a former yoga teacher turned urban planner who champions livable, affordable neighborhoods, to fight back. In St. Peter, Minn., dubious officials watched Hanson on the council-chamber floor maneuvering toy cars and Styrofoam houses on a gigantic paper plan of a neighborhood. "That was when their light turned on that this could work," says city administrator Todd Prafke. "It's like the neighborhoods where they grew up."

City bosses love their towns, says Hanson, 55, CEO of the nonprofit Greater Minnesota Housing Fund (GMHF). But new subdivisions are McMansion-studded culs-de-sac, "and their kids can't afford to live there anymore." He launched GMHF in 1996 to fight a housing shortage, applying New Urbanist principles to small towns. His portfolio is now up to 40 developments.