Pocket neighbourhoods are akin to how perhaps you grew up, with small communities (often sharing local green space) and ‘shirt-tail aunties and uncles’ who could keep an eye out for children and pets, to ensure they are safe within communities, and older people who don’t feel lonely.
If planting green spaces, use no-dig gardening and fruit protection bags (over netting, which can trap birds and wildlife). Learn how to create pet-safe gardens (use humane slug/snail deterrents). Avoid facing indoor foliage to gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.
In the modern age, most town planners build say 100 houses on a sterile estate, add a ‘community centre’ and perhaps a park that people can drive to, with the food shops out-of-town (unless you get a NISA that sells pizza and chips – so-called ‘food deserts’).
A pocket neighbourhood is different. It’s a bit like ‘The Waltons’, where you can sit on your porch swing and watch children and dogs play on the lawn in front. There’s less chance of either going missing, and older people get to live independently, rather than in nursing homes.
Pocket neighbourhoods batch-cook meals to save money and feed their communities (sharing favourite recipes with each other to freeze) and put community solar panels on roofs, to lower heating bills for all residents. Others grow community gardens to supply free food for everyone.
One fan wrote of pocket neighbourhoods that ‘Granddad can rock on his porch reading the news, while neighbours walk past and stop to ask about his hip replacement’.
Designing Pocket Neighborhoods
Most pocket neighbourhoods are small clusters of homes, say 10 to 12 households, grouped around a common courtyard or garden. The design is intentional, to bring people together, yet without being intrusive.
Most homes have front porches that face the common area, to promote casual encounters and foster friendships. The layout is also walking-friendly, to help reduce car traffic. Regular interactions in shared spaces helps to build trust, with residents more likely to watch out for each other. A bit like Neighbourhood Watch Schemes.
Successful Pocket Neighbourhoods
New York States’ Ithaca EcoVillage is a prime example of a pocket neighbourhood, with a focus on green living. The village even has a car-sharing scheme, so people can drive without the expense and waste of everyone owning a vehicle.
Create a Local Neighbourhood Website
If you can’t plan a pocket neighbourhood, at least set up a local website. Nextdoor is like a ‘local Facebook’. You set a boundary and put safety caveats in place, then post anything from lost/found pets, job adverts, community bulletins or where the nearest party is! It’s free to use, just find someone to handle the admin.
Councils and emergency services can also share real-time info (like flood warnings). And you can even say ‘hi’ to some of the 300,000 Next Door neighbourhoods around the world.
Facebook is increasingly concerning regarding privacy, tracking and grooming of children. NextDoor is local, safe, avoids the ‘Big Brother’ stuff and is not designed to make billionaires richer!
The ‘Grandfather’ of Pocket Neighbourhoods
Ross Chapin is the architect credited with creating pocket neighbourhood designs in the USA. An architect who lives on an island near Seattle (where he enjoys wild swimming in Puget Sound) he says ideal pocket neigbourhoods are no more than 1000 square feet each – about the size of two and a half garages) with ‘room-sized porches’ all facing a shared garden, and hidden parking. 60% of all households are now of one or two people.
The Rise of New Urbanism Communities
New Urbanism is not a term common in England, but in the US, so-called ‘planned communities’ where buildings are no more than four stories tall, are similar with communal green areas, hidden car parks and houses built around walking communities.
Town planning may seem like a boring job, but if done well, it’s a visionary way to transform where you live, using the same budget as now. It needs no more money, just more imagination and knowledge. Architect Andrés Duany has created beautiful towns in the US using his unique style of town planning, his ideas used worldwide to prevent urban sprawl.
Seaside (Florida) is what Americans call an ‘uppity town’ (too expensive for us to live there). But it has fabulous features. The main street (with an Art-Deco post office) has indie boutiques, the church is for all faiths, and the nearby city of Celebration ‘hides’ cars so they don’t blot the streetscape.
Mt Laurel (Alabama) features quiet tree-lined streets, parks and nature walks. The dog park is divided in two (one for boisterous pooches, the other for old dogs). You can walk from your home to the market and main street, and even walk to the fire station.
Most towns are build on a grid system, so people naturally ‘bump into each other’. Pavements are wide, and there is usually free or cheap public transport.
Andre’s company has built many communities in the style of Pocket Neighbourhoods:
Carlton Landing is a charming lakeside town on the shores in Oklahoma. This community focuses on bringing people together. There are nature trails, parks and shops all within walking distance, and even the Residence Club has an affordable membership option, not just for rich boat owners!
There’s a meeting house where everyone meets up for coffee, and a family-owned grocer, popular with both residents and holidaymakers. Plus a pizzeria and a local food truck, serving up hot drinks and snacks on cold days. There are even ‘pop-up shops’ for local market traders, that look more like swanky beach huts.
There’s also a community church for people of all faiths, followed by Bible Study classes for men and women after service. Along with a learning academy for students in the town and surrounding areas.
In Carlton Landing, we choose paths over pavements, and nature walks over noisy streets. All the town is designed on a ‘human scale’, to encourage walking and biking, for a healthier, happier community.
Small Town Communities in the USA
Many town planners and builders have now taken Ross’ idea to build ‘small communities’ over large family homes. Posh Pockets in Vancouver (Washington State) is just one example.
The Californian town of Healdsburg is another example of pocket neighbourhoods, where one and two bedroom homes are centred around a large green, with garages out-of-view. People can park in nearby garages, then walk through tree-lined pathways to get home.
The Cottage Company is an urban development company that uses the same principles, with a focus on creating small carbon footprints. One community in Seattle is just a ‘three block stroll’ from houses on tree-lined streets to the local:
- Farmers’ market
- Post office
- Library
- Grocery
- Hardware store
- Pub
- Bakery
- Cafe
- Public transport
The site offers many testimonials of people who have moved to small communities. Examples of why and how they live here include:
- Privacy, yet with ‘picture windows’ overlooking organic lawns and communal rose gardens
- Not a car in sight, as all are parked in nearby garages.
- Good design, means the small houses feel roomier than previous big homes.
- Big front porches to have coffee with others, or sit alone yet not feel lonely. The community uses humane critter control to deter raccoons.
- The company also builds sustainable BackYard Cottages (ideal for relatives) that are no more than 800 square feet. These are like granny flats, on the same plot with self-contained space for a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.
Riverwalk is a community of new homes built alongside restored historic homes, all having communal access to a large green, a pavilion and access to a nature reserve near a local river. Each house includes a porch that overlooks the communal green.
The Ember by the same developer again features charming homes, centred around a communal green area. People can stroll along trees lined avenues to visit the local farmers’ market or coffee house. Or simply wind down with a few drinks on the porch, with friends. Everything is close to the town, schools, art gallery and nature trails.
Why No Pocket Neighbourhoods in England?
It’s pretty depressing that most of our town planners and government officials have not studied pocket neighbourhoods, judging by the present policy of ‘build sterile homes on green belt land, that isolate people from communities’.
Nearly all new-builds are centred around isolation. Often you have to drive from homes eto reach out-of-town supermarkets and retail parks. Are you not inspired more by the homes above? Most of us would be.
Where do you stand on new houses? You know, the little red boxes you see massed along the sides of motorways, or clustered on what used to be flood plains? They’re hateful, aren’t they? Alec Marsh
Centre for Cities asks why all new homes are not being built within walking distance of local community hubs, considering we have an ageing population (many people can’t drive), poor public transport, climate emissions and reducing incomes?
The organisation Transport for New Homes examined recent house building projects. And found that many were centred more around providing ‘homes for cars’, rather than homes for people. Some homebuilders were even building 2 or 3 car parking spaces, for each home.
These new developments are making climate problems worse. As people who move to them have to spend time and money driving everywhere, unless they order everything online (which of course also is not as good as walkable shopping), and home-school their children.
Create Streets is kind of England’s answer to pocket neighbourhood campaigns. The founder says that recent attempts to ‘build new communities’ in the UK (without communal green space or access to local shops and schools) has been ‘depressing, unsustainable and stupid’, due to reliance on cars and sprawl.
The idea that ugly homes near piles of rubbish and empty shops, says to people in the community ‘this place doesn’t matter and by implication, neither do you’.
This organisation worked on a project near Exeter (Devon) for 45 homes, centred around a village green with a preserved tree, and parking in small rear courtyards. Like US pocket neighbourhoods, people can use pedestrian paths to reach a cycle lane and nearby park. 50% of the homes are ‘affordable’, a mix of terraced and semi-detached houses.
