Serenbe agri-village: green, charming and rural.. or is that exurban?

A travel feature in the Sunday NYT on Serenbe not only caught the attention of new urbanists -- it's currently the Times third most-emailed article -- but also generated some interesting online commentary on what constitutes a sustainable community.

Here's Steve Mouzon at the Original Green:

Today’s New York Times contains an excellent article detailing the Georgia town of Serenbe. This town is the precursor to a new wave of New Urbanism based on a very old idea: if you want to be able to live sustainably in a place, then you need to be able to eat food from that place. This is the essence of the newfound principle of “food security.” Put another way, you need to be able to look out onto the fields and onto the waters from which most of your food comes... just like our forbearers did. The very first principle of the Original Green is that a sustainable place must be a nourishing place, because if you can’t eat there, you can’t live there.

And here's Andres Duany at the pro-urb listserv:

Serenbe is a new country village. It creates wealth and fulfills the pursuit of happiness of quite a few people.
Some New Urbanists think--and many environmantalists agree-- that this is a type that must be exterminated for the sake of a certain conception of transportation and uninterrupted open space. The SmartCode, on the other hand, specifically allows it.
I have visited it and it is remarkable. The whole thing is pulled off by brilliant management. The location is by conventional analysis AWFUL. It is worth a visit.

More later.