In most U.S. cities, alleys and gangways are home to dumpsters, garages, and all manner of unsightly things that city-dwellers want to hide. A new development in Texas, though, is bringing these neglected places to the forefront and turning them into pedestrian-friendly paradises by updating one of the oldest urban planning ideas in the book: the humble mews.
Back in 17th-century England, the term "mews" — yes, that's both the singular and the plural — referred to a row of stables topped with apartments that wealthy families built behind or alongside their homes to house their horses and the people who cared for them. Over time, the term evolved to encompass the courtyard that ran in front of those stables and apartments, providing workers with a vibrant community space separate from their employer and most neighborhood traffic.
As carriages gave way to automobiles, though, many of the buildings that flanked the typical mews were converted into homes and businesses — and often, cities threw open their gates to cars, allowing former stables to be turned into garages, too.
Newer city developments, meanwhile, typically ditched the mews-style layout in favor of a shared alley running between the back halves of adjacent properties, or occasionally, a Manhattan-style grid with almost no alleys at all. And in the process, the pedestrianized mews all but disappeared.
In the new planned community of Indigo, though, a team of developers is bringing back the mews with a modern twist.
The 235-acre neighborhood has been deliberately platted with shared space running in front (or alongside) most homes, essentially transforming what would have been a resident's private yard into a community asset — and providing a "mews"-like experience to residents, without the wealthy main estate looming in the background. Roads are often relegated to the back of the home, decentering the automobile from community life.
Those nü-mews are essentially linear parks outfitted with "outdoor rooms," providing a range of shared resources that includes playgrounds, outdoor kitchens, herb gardens, fruit trees, and courses for a new game they're calling "Indigolf." Trails run throughout the mews, too, giving residents a car-free option to visit their neighbors, not to mention the Indigo Commons area, which will be outfitted with a grocery store, cafes, and other places to meet their basic needs.
"We wanted to find out what we could do to design a different sort of street layout, pedestrian mobility network, mixing of uses — all those things that would lead to a place that served more people," said Scott Snodgrass, co-founder of Meristem Communities, the developer behind the project. "And so then we had to start looking into: what are all the things we have to do to help reduce that car dependency, which provides so many benefits in so many different ways?"
Mews or no, going totally car-free probably won't be possible for most Indigoians.
Located in a suburban/rural area about 30 miles outside of deeply car-dependent Houston, the location of the community will still require many residents to commute to work or school, unless they happen to be employed by one of the businesses in the Commons or the working farm that will anchor the new development. Most mews are paralleled by roads where cars are still allowed; while Meristem notes that homes without garages and driveways are among the community's best-selling so far, some of the units do come with some kind of car storage.
Still, Snodgrass hopes the mews concept will significantly cut down on most residents' daily driving — not to mention give suburban kids back the autonomy so many of them have lost.
“I used to live in a suburb from the '70s [which] is known for its hundreds of miles of wonderful walking trails … but there were no sidewalks on our street," he adds. "To get to those trails, my 11-year-old would have had to walk a quarter-mile on the street to get there — and so we would never let her go, because we didn't want her walking on the street by herself … At Indigo, we wanted to provide a way for a kid to leave a house, be on a trail that doesn't have vehicles on it, and find their way all the way to the Commons, where they could go buy some ice cream, or pick up some eggs from the general store for dinner that night for mom and dad.”
If nothing else, Snodgrass argues that Indigo's take on the "mews" concept provides a blueprint for how new developments can easily cut down on driving by rethinking the basic building blocks of the suburban form, like the big front yard and the front-facing driveway. And in the process, it could help build a community where neighbors connect with one another just by stepping outside their front doors.
“[The mews] will serve all different body types, all different skill levels, all different ages," he adds. "We’re just trying to get people to engage with each other.”
