Where are the New Urbanist developments?

(Sorry for the funky look below -- but Typepad changed the blog template on me without my choice and I haven't figured out how to restore my defaults yet.)

City Journal had a piece recently on New Urbanism.  I found this passage particularly interesting:

After more than a quarter-century of New Urbanism, proclaimed Stefanos Polyzoides--who, with his wife Elizabeth Moule, heads a top-flight urban-design practice in Pasadena, California--"there's no indication that the system of building in this country is even dented." In other words, sprawl still reigns, and so do the sundry forms of architectural dysfunction afflicting the nation's public realm. The New Urbanists have changed the conversation, but they haven't changed the world. At least, not yet.

One of the things I've always liked about the New Urbanists is their cockiness, their professed willingness to compete in the marketplace.  Their attitude is, "We've got a better product."  It's just a matter of lowering the barriers.

But Polyzoides' statement raises an interesting question:  Why aren't there more New Urbanist projects?

I try hard not to project my own preferences onto others.  But I find it hard to believe that the typical person prefers this:

 

to this (which is not an actual New Urbanist development, but illustrates what New Urbanism is trying to recreate*):

 

There are new New Urbanist projects, especially smaller infill projects, but why aren't new village-scale projects being built left and right in places like Houston or Dallas? 

Here are the barriers I see to large-scale New Urbanist projects:

1. Anachronistic zoning codes.
2. NIMBYism, as colorfully detailed in Witold Rybczynski's Last Harvest.
3. Builder comfort.  It's easier for mass-production and strip-mall builders to develop standard the standard suburban pod.
4. Lender comfort.  Lenders exercise a lot of de facto control, and it's easier for them to pencil out a standard pod development than a complicated beast like a New Urbanist development.  Lenders consequently require less upfront equity for standard developments than complicated mixed-use developments.
5. Complexity.  An NU development has a lot of pieces that must be coordinated in subtle ways.  This requires more design up front and longer lead times.  It translates into higher costs.
6. Subsidies of alternative development patterns.  Special depreciation rules for strip malls, for example.  (Since we're talking about greenfield developments here, I think highway subsidies are less important.)

I'd like to believe that if these barriers were lowered through more flexible zoning and greater neighbor, builder and lender comfort, we'd see more developments.  But, as always with land-use issues, things are not quite so clear-cut.  Here are some arguments why the barriers above might not be as impenetrable as they appear:

1. Zoning codes can be changed if there is popular support for changing them.  Zoning often (but not always!) follows the market.  If people are clamoring for NU projects, then there should be a willingness by governments to change the codes.
2. New Urbanism has been around for 25 years now, plenty of time to grow a crop of specialized NU builders and lenders comfortable with the product.  There are specialists but, for whatever reason, they have remained niche builders rather than become mass producers like Lennar.  
3. There is no way to eliminate the additional complexity.  But many NU principles are capable of standardization and with a stable of builders expert in single-family, multi-family and commercial/mixed-use development, it ought to be easier these days to put together a village-scale development.
4. NIMBYism is hard to eradicate, but it's less of a problem in the suburbs of Houston and Dallas than, say, in Orange County.

Perhaps most Americans don't really care about "place making."  We're a mobile society; the average American moves every six years or so.  That discourages investment in exterior, neighborhood amenities and encourages investment in interior amenities.  Maybe Americans don't want to spend a lot of time with their neighbors.  The New Urbanists assume Americans do, but while you can choose the class of your neighbors, you can't guarantee that you'll like them.  Perhaps for these reasons Americans aren't as willing to invest in "places," which means they're not willing to pay the New Urbanist premium.

My own belief is that development patterns take a very, very long time to change.  As the obstacles to New Urbanist developments continue to recede, we'll see more of them.  There is real demand for New Urbanist development, as evidenced by the prices they command.  In the end, though, we can't control demand; we can only level the playing field.

*I pulled the second photo from a pamphlet on New Urbanist design.  The photo unfortunately was not captioned.  Does anyone recognize the town?