| New Urbanist neighborhoods are a new dimension in urban planning. These mixed use residential communities promote walkability, diversity, compactness, and vibrancy in an integrated fashion. New Urbanist communities are popular with today's homebuyers as they provide for a small town atmosphere. However, these communities are relatively new and little research has been conducted to determine the successful or unsuccessful elements of this style.; Kevin Lynch's research on urban environments discovered that residents can readily distinguish and identify certain positive community elements. Lynch determined that there were five elements important to the imageability of an urban area---nodes, paths, edges, districts, and landmarks.; This study assesses the residential perceptions of a New Urbanist community in Mt. Laurel, Alabama, utilizing Lynch's evaluation methods. The results indicated that Lynch's principles and methodology are valid approaches to determine the residential perceptions of New Urbanist environments. |
