Tracking the Shape of Things to Come at Harvard

This article in The Boston Globe by Robert Campbell describes a current architectural show at Harvard and discusses the planning for its new Allston campus:

It's interesting that "density" is cited as a virtue. This is a word in the process of reversing its connotation. Only a few years ago, "density" was bad. People endlessly recycled ancient lore about laboratory rats being driven crazy from crowding.

But with the revival of interest in city life, a movement that goes back at least to the great urbanist Jane Jacobs in the early 1960s, "density" is becoming a plus word. Densely built environments, it is now recognized, need less energy. Manhattan, for example, is, by far, the greenest community in the United States, as measured by the amount of energy used per household or per capita.

And dense communities, if they contain a tight enough mix of many uses and activities, are places where you can walk or bike to many things, with no need for a gas-guzzling car. Density needn't require high-rise, either. Low-rise Cambridge and Somerville are among the most densely populated communities in the United States. Low-rise Paris is the densest city in the developed world.