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A unified and centered locale

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A street with a unified style and character in the New Urbanist development Middleton Hills, Wisconsin

Experiencing a satisfying place character can produce the relaxing feeling of rootedness and being at home. Satisfying character and a complex humane textures of action can go together in wonderful ways. But a satisfying character can also mask narrow or oppressive social grammar.

Of all the critics of today's places, Karsten Harries is the most aware of both possibilities. While he wishes for a fusion of centered place design and wholeness of life, he understands how that feeling may reinforce social evils. He is not sure that modern democratic society allows such effective places to be designed any more, because such places may restrict freedom.

(See Harries 1997, Kolb 2007.)