A Tale of Two Washingtons: an “old” new town and a “new” old town: The special relationship between integrating land use and transport planning in the U.K. and U.S.A.

Contemporary development proposals have a long and complex relationship between their physical development characteristics and the underlying funding and delivery model. The physical aspects of urban form are increasingly evident in the defined parameters and metrics of emerging form-based design codes within the UK and USA. These substantive concerns have direct implications for urban densities & intensification, including residential and employment densities, diversity of built form, mix of land uses and the accessibility and proximity of public transport hubs. The underlying financial and funding aspects are more opaque, due to a mix of business confidentiality and inconsistencies in the understanding of project viability between statutory planning and developer stakeholders. Often the resultant physical proposals are based more on the demand side requirements of the market, that themselves pay little attention to changes or investments in public transit systems.

This paper explores the relationship between these physical parameters aligned to form-based coding in the national model design code (MHC&LG 2021), the rise of new urbanist-led developments in North America, and the underlying economic model necessary to support the delivery of sustainable transit-orientated development. This is undertaken through a comparative case study exploring a range of different viability models looking at a designated strategic development / urban expansion at Washington (an “old” new town) adjacent to a proposed extension to the Tyne and Wear metro connecting Sunderland with Gateshead and the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor TOD, Arlington in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area (an “new” old town) and the extension of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit system.

The paper presents the value of transit-orientated development as a strategic planning model within the context of a new wave of new towns and where it fits as a planning concept and delivery model in the long-term viability of sustainable places and communities. It evaluates the influence and impact of design coding (within a statutory planning framework) in stabilising land values, the options for effective developer contributions, and the financial / fiscal models for future expansion and sustainable urban development.