I like the idea of The New Urbanism. My only complaint is the manifestations we're seeing our cities: huge buildings which mimic what a group of many buildings would once have served in order to provide for mixed uses. It is not a durable way to build a neighborhood, because old and obsolete buildings can't be removed and replaced piecemeal as time goes by. When that huge neighborhood-mimicing building becomes old and obsolete, the only way to replace it is by tearing out the whole neighborhood and displacing hundreds of peoples' dwellings or jobs.
I assume that the only way thy were able to get the big developers on-board was to offer large tracts of land to develop into these NU villages, but I don't think they will age as well as blocks of independent, individually-built buildings do in older neighborhoods which the NU model covets.
MM