The conservative attack on family-friendly design

A pocket of conservatives are stupidly attacking land use and transportation policy that's about as conservative as can be. Here's one way to handle that.

Ignoring or rejecting shared interests is a huge strategic mistake for any type of movement. Too many urbanists who happen to be Democrats live in a Democrat bubble. They tell themselves (and anyone who will listen) that their Republican counterparts hate traditional neighborhood design, love cars more than their own kids, and think any type of reform is an attack on freedom. Republicans aren’t immune from this habit. They tell themselves (and anyone who will listen) that walkability and abundant housing are Trojan horse sneak attacks to force Americans into lives of serfdom.

The built environment can benefit humans or harm them. In the US, zoning reform is a bipartisan issue that both political teams are largely ignorant about.

The Federalist published an entire article written by two people who don’t understand the basic principles of New Urbanism, suburban retrofit, and regulatory reform. The Federalist is written for a conservative audience and the authors call themselves conservative. But given an opportunity to illustrate how land use policy can benefit conservatives, they took the tired and predictable blue-vs-red route. Here’s what Jonathan Bronitsky posted on X about the article he co-wrote with his wife Paige:

I've lived in several cities in the U.S. and abroad. Here's the real problem: You know exactly what a city is—and you're dead set on turning the suburbs into one, just as record numbers flee urban chaos, noise, and crime. Americans want space and liberty for their families.

New Urbanism masquerades as "traditionalist," but it's actually an assault on property rights, prosperity, and personal mobility.

Paige Bronitsky and I take a wrecking ball to the left's utopian planning fantasies.

Mr. and Mrs. Bronitsky don't realize that status quo land use regulations came out of an early 20th century progressive movement where the people who know best would determine who does what, who lives where, etc. It’s not like this was hidden in some tricky jargon. Zoning is set up for people to live in this zone, shop in that zone, worship in that zone over there. (“Progressive” is not interchangeable with “liberal.” Here, I’m specifically talking about the progressive movement. I’m also not going to explain the difference in this post.)

The New Urbanist movement has a wide spectrum of characters who fight against centralized control. There are lefties, right-wingers, libertarians, and anarchists who for many different reasons want to decide for themselves if they convert a single family home to a duplex, or open a piano teaching business in their living room, or sell carpentry tools out of their garage.

The movement emerged because so many layers of government regulations prevented human-scale, family-friendly neighborhood design. A bunch of architects, designers, and some developers were fed up with the status quo and wrote a charter to document everything so future writers wouldn’t have to mind-read. Are there too many rules? Are the rules hurting families? Are single-family homes an abomination? Are cars the enemy? It’s all in the charter.

Here are a few snippets to illustrate how buffoonish the article attacking New Urbanism is.

Misunderstanding the New Urbanism response to central control:

Despite their aesthetic differences, both forms of New Urbanism share a common goal: reengineering American life by discouraging homeownership. The “planning and development approach,” as the Congress for New Urbanism puts it, champions “walkability” and “human-scale” design but, in reality, is about control—limiting choices and creating a transient, economically dependent population that tilts politics permanently leftward.

Misunderstanding the New Urbanism approach to mobility:

At the heart of this movement is a fanatical hatred of the automobile. New Urbanists dream of a “car-free” America, where individuals are herded onto public transit or forced to walk and bike their way through life, regardless of their needs or preferences.

Misunderstanding the New Urbanism opportunities for families:

It’s frankly absurd that conservatives — who are pro-family — would entertain the idea of cramming kids into tiny apartments with no yards. How exactly are parents supposed to raise multiple children in a 600-square-foot box? Where are kids supposed to play? On a rooftop patio shared with strangers? Instead of capitulating to left-wing planners pushing this dystopian vision, conservatives should be fighting for policies that encourage more single-family homes.

I’m not going to give a point-by-point rebuttal of the article or even try to persuade the authors to change their minds. The Bronitsky’s smug hostility shows they aren’t interested in talking politely. The Federalist’s readers, on the other hand, would benefit tremendously from understanding New Urbanism. Again, considering the conservative readership, the authors could have written a harsh critique of how applying progressive ideas to land use policy severely limited property rights and stifled human flourishing for almost 100 years.

• Minimum amounts of car storage mandated by the government

• Minimum lot sizes by the government

• Housing sorted into zones by the government

• Restaurants and shops forbidden in residential zones by the government

• Churches forbidden in residential zones by the government

• A mixture of housing types forbidden by the government

• Running a home-based business forbidden by the government

• Certain construction materials forbidden by the government

• Strip mall owners prohibited by the government from converting vacant space to housing (or anything else)

New Urbanism can be embraced by progressives for its sustainability or affordable housing outcomes. But its localism, market-driven solutions, deregulation, and revival of traditional design are conservative talking points. Regardless of your personal politics, land use and transportation policy can absolutely be bipartisan issues. But sometimes, a message needs to be very deliberately crafted to a certain audience. Not manipulated narratives and strawmen, like the example I gave above, but a customized message for a particular audience.

If I was going to pitch a provocative angle on the built environment to The Federalist (and I probably will), it’d be something along these lines: How New Urbanists Protect Against Progressive Attacks. I’ll start with a Top 10 list and see where it takes me.

1. Challenge Central Planning and Bureaucratic Control

Progressives want top-down planning and extensive government involvement in shaping cities and suburbs. New Urbanism, by contrast, promotes market-driven, human-scaled urban design that thrives in environments with fewer zoning restrictions and regulatory barriers. The movement’s emphasis on mixed-use, walkable communities aligns more with incremental development rather than large, government-led urban renewal projects.

2. Undermine the Ideology of Wealth Distribution

As an alternative to economic redistribution, rent controls, and government-subsidized projects, New Urbanism instead emphasizes market-based affordability by advocating for zoning reform that allows for a broader mix of housing types. By enabling “missing middle” housing (e.g., duplexes, ADUs, and row homes), it naturally increases affordability without direct state intervention, challenging the progressive approach of heavy government subsidies.

3. Resist the Suburban Welfare State

While many progressives criticize suburban sprawl, they support policies that enable it—such as government-backed 30-year mortgages, highway subsidies, and exclusionary zoning. New Urbanism exposes this contradiction by advocating for deregulation that would allow more organic, traditional urban development without trapping families in car-centric infrastructure funded by taxpayers.

4. Promote Localism Over Cookie-cutter Development

Give people control over their community’s destiny rather than being subject to one-size-fits-all that we see sprawled out across the country. From free-range chickens to free-range kids, legalize family-friendly places within walking and biking distance from home. Let people exchange goods, services, and ideas in ways that suit them, rather than being forced to obey regulatory regimes that aim for conformity.

5. Encourage Incremental Development

Instead of relying on large-scale projects with so-called economic development giveaways, foster incremental development led by private property owners and small-scale developers. This model reduces dependence on government grants and subsidies, and actually makes “neighborhood character” something interesting and tangible.

6. Rehabilitate Traditional Urban Forms

It’s okay to romanticize good stuff. Pre-war city planning included main streets, corner stores, front porches, and mixed-use development. Celebrate traditional patterns as alternatives to utopian social planning that results in a sprawled out, car-dependent lifestyle. Promote beautiful design, good craftsmanship, and surprising destinations with ample bicycle parking.

7. Change the Climate Narrative

Progressives frame sustainability through the lens of large-scale government interventions, as if the interventions haven’t forced Americans into unsustainable zones. Show that simple policy changes, such as legalizing a variety of uses in one neighborhood, is good for the natural environment and doesn’t require heavy-handed mandates, carbon taxes, etc.

8. End Progressive NIMBYism

Progressive cities like San Francisco have been demonstrating the negative outcomes of applied NIMBYism for decades. New Urbanists promote upzoning neighborhoods to allow families of all sizes and backgrounds to have the same opportunities to thrive.

9. Shift Focus Toward Civic Life

Focus on meeting neighbors, keeping eyes on the street, sharing cargo bike tips, letting kids explore, embracing the elderly, building beautiful places, protecting property rights, and spending money on local businesses—values that transcend identity politics.

10. Treat Cars as a Market-Based Choice, Not an Enemy

Instead of outlawing personal cars, create viable options. If 25% of Americans are under 18 or over 80, then why shouldn’t they be able to get around town without being forced to use a car? Plan and engineer spaces that naturally make walking, biking, and transit easy choices for residents and visitors.

The principles of human-scale design—walkability, vibrant local economies, strong communities—align perfectly with both liberal and conservative priorities. The real divide is between ordinary people and the corporate-government machine that prioritizes highways, car dependency, and sprawl at the expense of families, workers, and local economies.

Read the New Urbanist charter: https://www.cnu.org/who-we-are/charter-new-urbanism

Read the Federalist article: https://thefederalist.com/2025/02/10/new-urbanists-want-to-bulldoze-the-suburban-american-dream/

Remember that seeing development from space is hardly an American dream: