For those who long for the connectivity of small-town life but don't want to give up the conveniences of urban living, neo-traditional communities provide an alternative.

		On the Web Congress for The New Urbanism: www.cnu.org American Planning Association's New Urbanism Design Division: www.planning.org/newurbanism Walkable Communities Inc.: www.walkable.org

Designed to include everything within easy walking distance -- from the corner grocery to the school, and perhaps even the office -- they appeal to diehard pedestrians. Advocates say the traditional neighborhood design concept, which has been around since the mid-1980s, is picking up steam.

But don't be blinded by the label. Critics say not everything claiming to be a "traditional" neighborhood lives up to its billing. And while a pedestrian lifestyle can cut down on trips to the gas station and maybe even the number of cars a family needs, detractors say those financial gains may not offset the higher costs of TND homes.

TND grew out of the new urbanism movement, a response to suburban sprawl and a growing dependence on automobiles, says John O. Norquist, president & CEO of the Congress for The New Urbanism and former mayor of Milwaukee.

Mr. Norquist cites three factors that historically combined to create the current American landscape of disparate neighborhoods. One was zoning practices that segregated commercial and retail districts from residential neighborhoods. Another was the overbuilding of highways. Finally, the secondary mortgage market until recently favored separately zoned, single-family homes.

"Together," says Mr. Norquist, "they created a situation where people and their activities are spread over the landscape in separate pods. The new urbanism is all about undoing that."

Unlike the long, undifferentiated sprawl of cookie-cutter developments that characterize much of suburbia now, he says, neo-traditional neighborhoods must have a discernible center and edge. In that center, where a project's density is greatest, there should be ample public space in the form of a town square or urban park.

Getting people out of their cars is among the new urbanists' major objectives. A maxim of TND is that almost everything residents need should be no more than a 10-minute walk away.

According to Marie York, chair of the American Planning Association's New Urbanism Design Division, living in a neighborhood designed with the pedestrian in mind could save a family enough in transportation costs to cover the mortgage.

"In a two-income household," she says, "if one person can get by without having a car for transit, that's an average savings of $680 a month, which in turn can translate into the possibility of homeownership. So it's a huge economic benefit."

Ms. York says new urbanists have given a lot of thought to how roads are designed. They seek high levels of connectivity in street grids to disperse auto traffic and make neighborhoods pedestrian-friendly. To achieve that kind of walkability, TND supports zoning laws that allow for a mix of shops, offices and homes within the same area, the same block or even the same building.

"The whole concept of walkability has to do with scale," says Dan Burden, executive director of Walkable Communities Inc., which provides guidance and training on "what walkability really is" in neighborhoods, cities, counties, and states.

Mr. Burden is a senior urban designer with Gladding Jackson planning firm in Orlando, Fla.

"With conventional light density and poor connectivity, it's impossible to visit friends or get to a store other than by car," he says. "It makes us highly car-dependent and forces higher car ownership.

"People often move into a neo-traditional neighborhood with the idea that it will cut down on their travel expenses. If you're careful to pick a project that offers the kind of services you need, you can cut those expenses back by 40 percent."

There may be environmental benefits in the bargain.

"If I can get to 40 percent of my locations by walking or biking," Ms. York says, "there's that much fewer emissions going into the atmosphere."

While that sounds good on paper, says Alex Marshall, author of "How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl and the Roads Not Taken," the merits of small-town living aren't so easily transferred to the suburbs.

"What do people like about small towns? Walkability, some history and a nice mix of stores downtown," say Mr. Marshall, who is a senior fellow at the Regional Planning Association in New York City.

"What they often don't like is that there's no place to park. You have to provide spaces for the cars somewhere, and that often ends up undermining attempts to make it function more like a traditional town."

Also, Mr. Marshall points out that a downtown-shopping district requires a very high density of residents to support it.