No home in Abacoa is more than a five-minute walk from a neighborhood square. Each of Abacoa's 10 neighborhoods, in fact, is anchored by one of these squares, which, with homes circled around and facing in, often look like a New England town green. This is the place to play ball, stroll or chat with neighbors.

Moreover, Abacoa's 10 neighborhoods are clustered around two larger public spaces. One is the town center, essentially one shop-lined street; the other is a 300-acre greenway that winds with a jogging path through the community.

This bias stems from the belief that a neighborhood that encourages pedestrians will prove more social than one that surrenders roads solely to automobiles.
Streets in Abacoa will be as much as 10 feet narrower than comparable streets in Weston or other contemporary subdivisions. This slows traffic, making walking safer and more pleasant. There are other inducements for pedestrians, too. Shady trees -- not palms -- will keep sidewalks cooler. A strip of grass at least five feet wide will separate strollers from passing cars. Most importantly, the street system favored by contemporary subdivisions -- the curvy maze of cul-de-sacs -- will be replaced in favor of a modified grid. (The intersecting streets of a grid make it easier to walk from place to place.)

This is a radical departure from most new housing developments, which scrupulously segregate buildings based on their function and size.

Shops, for example, are separated from homes. (This means there's no walking to the corner store for a carton of milk.) Homes, in turn, are divided into pods based on income and size. Some neighborhoods, for example, consist exclusively of ``starter homes'' (young couples) or family homes (couples with kids) or ``empty-nesters.''

This isolation wears on the fabric of community, according to de Guardiola, because when a family's circumstances change -- requiring a different type of home -- the family can't find one within the neighborhood.
Investing in `human capital'

``There is a serious loss of vital human capital, an essential ingredient of the community,'' said de Guardiola, who also directed development at Wellington. ``I have witnessed this happening over and over.''

Anticipating such changes, each neighborhood within Abacoa includes at least three housing sizes, from townhomes to large houses, prices ranging from $80,000 to $300,000.

``If a person likes his neighborhood but needs a different house, he can just recycle himself within that neighborhood, keeping the friends, maintaining the civic standing,'' said de Guardiola.

So far, so good. But why haven't more developers signed up? Plans for the first New Urbanist project, the Panhandle resort town of Seaside, after all, were drafted more than a decade ago. Today, there are just 37 such projects under construction in the United States. That group involves tens of thousands of homes, to be sure, but a drive out to West Kendall or Pembroke Pines tells you that far more developers are ignoring New Urbanism than embracing it.

Primarily, it seems, home builders are reluctant to stray from contemporary sprawl design because it has proved commercially successful.

``Most developers would rather look at what works and simply duplicate it,'' de Guardiola said. ``But I believe this community will sell even better. Anyway, I was already in the business of building homes, so why not build community, too?''

Secondly, what troubles developers about New Urbanism is that usually, well, it's illegal. Local zoning codes often prohibit the fundamentals of neotraditional planning, forbidding narrow streets, for example, and the neighborly corner store. (As Duany likes to point out, some of the nation's most cherished places -- such as Key West -- could not be built under contemporary zoning.) To build Abacoa, notes Abacoa architect Scott Hedge, the developer had to write a new 70-page section to the town of Jupiter's codes.

Finally, even if a builder is willing to entertain New Urbanist ideas, the builder often first looks to Seaside, which has become something of an icon for the movement. But the homes at Seaside -- designed by notable architects from across the country -- while delightful, have the odd effect of scaring off the average subdivision builder.

``There's not really any merchant builder that even remotely relates to Seaside,'' de Guardiola said. ``You're talking about houses built by custom carpenters on a one-by-one basis, not production homes. They're doing 20 homes a year. If any of us were thinking along those lines, we'd all go broke. It's almost a philanthropic exercise.''
Suburbs prove resilient

Today, the fate of New Urbanism depends on the level of discontent in suburbia. Over the years, however, suburbia has faced -- and survived -- attacks time and again.

Three decades ago, architecture critic Lewis Mumford said that post-World War II development leads to ``an encapsulated life, spent more and more either in a motor car or within the cabin of darkness before a television set.'' For novelist John Cheever, the suburbs of the '50s served as a stage for alienated characters. By 1967, even the Monkees, the typically saccharine Beatles knock-off, were taking aim:

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

Here in Status Symbol Land

Today, artists and critics continue to lampoon suburbia. Check out the garish pastel subdivision of the film Edward Scissorhands. Listen to Soul Asylum's song Black Gold. Or take in Eric Bogosian's play Suburbia, where the action takes place, for lack of anything better, in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven.

Is it really that bad? The answer may prove critical to the New Urbanism, which today is the most popular alternative to conventional suburbia.