**3. Case sutdies**

226 Urban Development

American New Towns. The current era of New Town development began in 1962 with the creation of Reston, Virginia. The "new community" movement of the 1960s and 1970s attempted a grand experiment in housing. It inspired the construction of innovative communities that were designed to counter suburbia's cultural conformity, social isolation, ugliness, and environmental problems. This richly documented book examines the results of those experiments in three of the most successful new communities: Irvine Ranch in Southern California, Columbia in Maryland, and The Woodlands in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. Since that time at least thirty-eight planned communities have been developed throughout the United States. The Federal New Communities Program of the U.S. Department of Housing

One of the arguments of creating a new town is the creation of an attractive living environment, with a well planned housing and spatial organization. Sometimes new towns represent speculative ventures for private enterprises. It is said that more successful experiences tend to have occur in countries where the government provides long term subsides. Modern Planned Communities provide housing for a variety of income levels and allow the residents to participate in the governance of the city. There are two ways of qualification a New Town: 'independent', if they contain the employment of their own residents and 'satellite4' if there is a substantial amount of residents that commute to other

The Woodlands was chosen one of the thirteen communities to be affected by the 1968 New Communities Act (Housing and Urban Development Title IV) as the site of a new planned community. The act, amended in 1970, provided \$18 million of a total \$294 million in federal

In this paper, I have adapted the third model to a case where a public manager is replaced by a private committee to produce what I call an "involvement community", where people and organizations are involved in a process of making and implementing policy. There are no politicians and political parties that can take policy decisions depending on their ideology or can have electoral or party motivations. Developed through the case study, the theory of an involvement community follows from the actions citizens take in the pursuit of specific goals. Osborne and Gaebler (1992) discuss how community members can add special knowledge and experience. They quote John McKnight of Northwestern University, who feels that communities, since they are closer to their problems, are better able to understand and address them. Defining community is difficult because people live and work in different locations, often crossing jurisdictional boundaries, but a sense of belonging, as several theorists have emphasized, provides a reason for action (Etzioni, 2004; Sandel, 1998; Taylor, 1989) and organization. This kind of organizational process is important because community

and Urban Development (1970-1983) sponsored thirteen of these communities.

loan guarantees for new towns. The Woodlands is a company-run town

members have key information needed to implement plans and public policy.

residents use some of the facilities of the cities nearby.

Involvement is the product of identification with and a feeling of belonging to a place where one lives peacefully. People want to give back to their community, and for that reason, they volunteer to be elected as representatives of their villages or neighbourhoods. According to

4 Some authors use the term satellite also for those new towns which are self-contained but whose

metropolis.
