Understanding factors affecting people’s attitudes toward living in compact and mixed-use environments: a case study of a New Urbanist project in Eugene, Oregon, USA

Abstract

This paper examines factors affecting people’s attitudes toward living in a compact and mixed-use environment. It reports a case study of a new compact and mixed-use project in Eugene, Oregon. Based on a survey of and interviews with residents living in close proximity to this project, and interviews with local planners and developers, this research shows that people’s attitudes toward compact living are associated with their awareness of the environmental and social consequences related to different land-use patterns and their residential preference for and perceptions of environmental qualities of compact neighborhoods, as well as their impression of the new project nearby.

Keywords:

• compact and mixed-use development
• smart growth
• public attitudes
• residential preference

Notes

1. We’d like to note that in discussions presented in this article, we have used terms such as “compact and mixed-use”, “New Urbanist neighborhood and design”, “smart-growth neighborhood and environment”, and “traditional neighborhood and environments” interchangeably. We use these terms to refer to a development project with relatively higher density and greater land-use mix compared to land uses in the surrounding area, knowing that there is no single, clear definition of “compact and mixed uses” (see Ewing 1997; Yang 2008). While acknowledging the distinctions among the aforementioned terms, we retain the use of multiple terms in presenting our literature review as various terms have appeared in different surveys. When presenting our case study, we mainly use the term New Urbanist because of the consistency in design principles and quality between Crescent Village and the New Urbanism.

2. Arlie & Company launched Crescent Village in 2006, but had to file for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in 2010 as a result of the recent economic crisis. Recent news reports suggested that the company has been able to improve its financial condition and continue development of this project (see Stollar 2011).

3. The average lot size for a single-family dwelling unit in our study area is about 7500 square feet, compared with 3000 square feet for a townhouse lot located inside Crescent Village.

4. Address information for the survey questionnaire was obtained from a saturation-mailing-service company located in Eugene. We did not survey Crescent Village residents, because our research focus was on residents who were passively affected by this project. In other words, we surveyed residents living outside of but close to this New Urbanist project.