Neighborhood Character Should Balance Perfection with Personality

We tried for a top 10 list of principles, but actually there are 13, a baker's dozen or lagniappe as they would say in Cajun country.

1. A pleasing degree of consistency in urban design and architectural character, striking a balance between repetition and monotony in design elements on a block or in a district.

By design element, we mean general building heights, mass, setbacks, architectural period, materials, and patterns of doors, windows, rooflines, and ornamentation.



2. Zing. Zip. Think of "neighborhood character" as close to the concept of "personality." When everything is predictable, even if attractive, it's a little boring. Get creative.

3. The human touch. Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. Not to the point it looks too perfect, though. But when the little things are right, it contributes to neighborhood character.

This means the street signs are in place, litter has been picked up, trash cans are emptied, sidewalks are present and in good repair, and we see some flower tubs in the commercial district. But don't make it look so "arranged" it seems like an intrusion to enter.

4. Buildings in good repair, since we were speaking of maintenance. That doesn't mean that you need to start stripping off 50-year-old stucco so you can apply vinyl siding. It doesn't mean that you replace all aging wood that adds character.

But it does mean using good judgment about what imperfections are charming, and what's only lack of investment. It also means that if you are in a community dominated by poverty, you're making the right attempts to shake off fatalism and to lift spirits, ambitions, and educational levels.

5. Attention to detail in the public realm. The public realm consists of the street, sidewalk, and street lighting, trees, and furniture. Collectively this is called streetscape when it parallels the street. When the public realm is well-coordinated and unifying, consistency in urban design can be achieved.

Then when the private realm is a trifle quirky, we find it charming rather than obnoxious. It's also worth pointing out that there must be a public realm other than a hardscape (just street) to create a welcoming neighborhood character.

Just to add nuance, some of the most delightful places in the world blur the line between public and private space in an intriguing fashion; an example is the courtyards of New Orleans.

6. Readability and wayfinding. While it's fun to wonder what's around the next corner or curve, it's only a little bit of fun for most people. We want a vaguely familiar structure, a block pattern we can decipher, a general and somewhat predictable progression from larger to smaller buildings or vice versa.

It's great to be in a neighborhood where we can find our way either intuitively or because of attractive wayfinding signs or pavement markings or art follies with a terrific graphic theme.

7. The visual impacts of pavement and hard surfaces mitigated by softening elements. Usually this means landscaping. However, street banners have become popular in part because they provide some slight movement and a softer texture.

8. Pleasant color combinations. Think through a limited color palette or theme in the public realm and stay with it. If you have mostly gray pavement and beige vinyl, you seriously need punchy colors. But if you have a block face dominated by a pink granite bank façade, you just need a touch of elegance, maybe basic black.

Squint a little while looking at your neighborhood. Is that safety yellow sign too jarring? Is every color a neutral? Do the colors look appropriate for your climate and part of the country? If you like what you see, keep accentuating the same neighborhood character.

9. Layers of complexity. When it looks as though every building in town was built in exactly the same year, that's usually not a good thing.

Even so-called historic districts of great merit actually exhibit a variety of eras of construction; it's just that new buildings were designed in sympathy with the older buildings until the slight innovations on a basic theme introduced with each decade result in a splendid harmony.

10. Attention to scale. Buildings of many sizes actually will work within any town. But not all sizes. So a large house in a very small town doesn't look odd to us, but a huge discount store in a very small town would be jarring. On a very urban street, we find all sizes of shops intriguing, but if we find a train station that's about 12 feet square in a major city, something's wrong.

Also consider which scale is most important--scale in relation to the pedestrian, driver, or even aerial view. Check out our page on urban design theory if you need more.

11. Vistas and pleasing perspectives. Vistas in a town or an urban area need termination points. As new urbanist theory points out, these termination points are ideal locations for important public and civic uses.

Of course Mother Nature provides the termination points of its own in the forms of mountains, horizons, or the ocean. By the way, we all think we have an innate right to view the horizon, so that's one reason for the brouhaha when development intrudes on a former view that included the horizon.

12. Interpretation. Ideally the visitor would find it easy not only to navigate through your neighborhood, but also to learn about anything particularly unique and individual to your neighborhood character.

If your history is interesting, explain it through pictographs, symbols, words, brochures, or living exhibits. If your culture merits some explaining, take the opportunity to engage the young, the old, and the visitor with stories.

13. Entrances, gateways, and exits. Formal entrances to the neighborhood may or may not consist of monuments, arches, gateways, or signage. But there should be a sense of arrival at a worthwhile destination.

Trees, public art, median strips, colored pavement, banners, or a change of streetscape all could be used to form an entranceway. Just make sure it's welcoming and compatible with neighborhood character.

Frequently overlooked, exits from the neighborhood also should be easy to spot. You never want anyone to leave, of course, but when they do, their last memory of your neighborhood shouldn't be how tricky it was to find the way back to the highway.

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