Why I Hate Suburbia

2003-10-21T15:04:00.000-04:00

Vancouver: Not for the Masses?

Been a year... No excuses, really. Just been busy living life and trying to fight the good fight. Our neighborhood Main Street is finally getting off the ground after fits and starts...

But today I happened upon a piece about Vancouver's becoming the city of haves. I've spent only a brief amount of time in that great Northwest city. It did seem to have its share of good things going on (I think I may have mentioned the amazing new central library downtown a while back). The article delves into the city becoming a place for the world's wealthy and elite to have second homes (and third homes and so on). It draws into question whether this sort of development can possibly sustain itself. Almost all new development is condominiums; less than 40% of the city's residents are renters. Not sure yet what to make of this analysis, but here's the story.

2002-09-18T18:01:00.000-04:00

Yeah, What He Said, Part 2

The continuation of the aforementioned screed about suburbia. Brilliant. Patio Man and the Sprawl People, Part 2

2002-09-18T17:58:00.000-04:00

Yeah, What He Said

Perhaps the most brilliant writing about suburbia I've ever read, this piece in the Weekly Standard beats the nail to a bloody pulp. See Patio Man and the Sprawl People (Part 1)

2002-02-22T12:34:00.000-05:00

Are We That Inept a Society?

I read way too much. Subscribed to too many lists on the urban condition in America, I am constantly barraged with other-worldly tales of the kind of sad state of our collective psyche when it comes to thinking about how we live in this country. A recent post on ProURB, a list sponsored by folks at CNU (Congress for New Urbanism), had a depressing article about "lifestyle centers" from the NY Times. The focus was a development out in Silicon Valley by Federal Real Estate Investment Trust (the mall-building maniacs up in Rockville, not far from here) called "Santana Row."

It's a commentary on our society that we are now really starting to fashion suburbia after the traditional towns and cities we used to build. The only difference is that these places are not organic--they are not accreted over time and built by many hands. Instead, they are a calculated, monopolistic enterprise designed to control the entire "experience." Much like Disney does. Perhaps the scariest thing I got from this article: the retailers are considering providing logo-emblazoned mini-blinds for the tenants above their "shops" (how quaint) so that they can ensure a uniform look to the window dressings. Guess that's the price you pay for living at a mall.

Here's the article:

Five Rooms, Gucci View
By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON

SAN JOSE, Calif.

CHRISTINE FRANZ, 35, a software consultant who looks like Meg Ryan, was exactly
what developers had in mind when they started Santana Row, a Silicon Valley
crest in the latest, most ambitious wave of shopping malls.

Ms. Franz, demographic perfection, stared out through fashionable sunglasses at
the muddy Main Street of the 21-acre site, now concrete and steel. By August,
when the $475 million "lifestyle village" is scheduled to open, Santana Row's 17
city blocks will boast 100 specialty shops, including Gucci, Tourneau and Burberry.

But shopping is only the start. Santana Row will also be home to the people who
live above the stores in 1,200 studios, lofts, town houses and villas.

Welcome to mall-town America. You can now drop where you shop, a few steps upstairs.

Santana Row is the largest example nearing completion of a new hybrid of retail
development and housing that has seized the imagination of the shopping center
industry in the last year, just as regional megamall developments have begun to
lumber and older suburban strip malls shutter and die.

More than a dozen such malls are breaking ground nationally, in Cincinnati;
Littleton, Colo.; Richmond Heights, Mo.; and elsewhere. Developers and
municipalities say they have the potential for profit, reinventing dead retail
property in older suburbs. Open-air and upscale, with Main Street-style
architecture, they are intended to appeal to young professionals with expensive
brand- name tastes and retirement-ready empty nesters looking for downtown's
retail sophistication.

Commercial developers like to call these shopping villages "communities." The
affluent, amenity-laden life as a salable daydream has a familiar history,
whether as housing at the edge of the golf course green or condominiums at the
tennis club.

Ms. Franz was, to a corduroy-collared, denim-jacketed T, a prime prospect on
Santana Row's open- house tour. "Forgive me for sounding snobbish," she said.
"But the retail sounds like it's going to be top- notch." A 40,000-square-foot
Crate & Barrel will sell the welcome mats.

Fred Smith, 52, an engineer on the tour with Ms. Franz, said: "It's fantastic. I
could go downstairs to Starbucks for coffee, then come back upstairs and work on
my computer, then go back down to Chili's for dinner."

Mr. Smith is the other side of Santana Row's demographic silver dollar: baby
boomers on the brink of retirement, looking for a last place to live ? 20
million of them turning 55 within the next two years.

"And shopping-wise, it's very nice not to have to drive," said Annette Hamon,
55, a graphic artist who owns a house in Cupertino, Calif. "I'd like to live
someplace where you don't have so much upkeep yourself."

The builder of Santana Row, Federal Realty Investment Trust , a retail-property
developer based in Rockville, Md., with $2.5 billion in assets, compares the
mall's mix of shopping and living to a typical neighborhood in New York.

But urbanists debate whether the demography of a private development pinned
specifically to upscale shopping and dining will actually invite the true
diversities of metropolitan life, while retailers weigh the risk that upstairs
residents with eyesore tastes in window curtains could ruin their sales image below.

Santana Row's developers are giving stores the option to dress the residents'
windows above, in certain buildings. The 6,000-square-foot Gucci may, if it
chooses, install blinds in the apartments that will display retail logos when
pulled down, said Marc McQuain, the retail development manager ? an ultimate
brand extension that may or may not bother residents, depending upon the
strength of their shopping allegiances.

"At the end of the day, it's a shopping center," said Barbara Lamour, 29,
touring with her father, Will Heiduk, a retired engineer. "It's not a community.
It's a business."

Santana Row, though it will have street mimes and strolling mandolin players,
will not have public parks, day care or senior-citizen centers, schools or
community boards. And its retail tenants will be well tailored to the tastes of
residents whose incomes will support the proposed rents ? $1,500 to $10,000 a
month. Dean & DeLuca, not Safeway , will be the corner grocery. Santana Row will
have no church, but there will be an imported 18th-century French chapel,
selling flowers.

Lifestyle villages are rapidly eclipsing in scale and civic posture earlier,
smaller residential-shopping developments like Mizner Place, in Boca Raton,
Fla., built in 1988. The Streets of West Chester in suburban Cincinnati and
Birkdale Village, a 52- acre shopping and residential community outside
Charlotte, N.C., have also broken ground in the last year. Housing is also being
integrated, as a second phase, into many of the 25 existing open-air, upscale
shopping malls that developers call "lifestyle centers," to convert them to
villages.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers report on shopping malls issued last year estimated
that 18 percent of the nation's 2,800 malls are dead or dying as commercial
ventures. It cited aging malls' inability to compete with newer malls that
provide a stronger draw with movies and other recreation, and increasing
dissatisfaction among suburban shoppers bone- tired of highway trips and
traffic. Lifestyle centers, many planned to include residences, are replacing
them. Santana Row, which sits at an intersection with two other malls, is being
built on the site of the former Town and Country Mall, now the mud of its new
Main Street.

With one third the retail space of existing regional megamalls, which have a
million square feet or more, these hybrids exclude "big box" department stores
like Macy's as anchors, considered mass-market merchants, preferring higher-end
chains like Williams-Sonoma, which owns Pottery Barn.

Small examples of centers with retail and residence integration, like Phillips
Place in Charlotte, developed in 1997, have succeeded at maintaining a high
level of the right, exclusive retail tenants and a high level of resident
occupancy ? 90 percent at Phillips Place.

"There is `city' life, and there is `some' life, and there is `no' life ? the
suburbs," said Dr. Keoni Udarbe, 34, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment above
Cradle and All, a baby- goods shop at Phillips Place. "If I need to have a
dinner party, I can walk to Dean & DeLuca." Dr. Udarbe, a psychiatric
pediatrician who moved from New York City, had no problems with the urban
character of his new home, including the December toy drive in the courtyard and
the week of ho-ho-hoing below his balcony. "But it's not like living in the
city. I lived in the city ? and this is not close."

Christopher Cole, a director of development on the East Coast for Terranomics
Development, a retail development company based in New Jersey, said that
interest in projects like Santana Row "is driven by municipalities wanting urban
centers, where you live and shop in the same neighborhood."

Susan F. Shick, the executive director of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency,
which rezoned Santana Row's land to allow both housing and shops, said, "When a
developer comes in with more retail ? and high end ? why would you say no?"
Centers like Santana Row, she said, can create a profitable synergy of uses for
developers and a high tax base for the neighborhood, but also, potentially, a
hellishly high density of people and cars at a single site.

In Rochester Hills, Mich., the Village at Rochester Hills, a lifestyle center
now being built, was not allowed residences in its plan largely because of the
congestion they stood to create.

"The whole area's bursting at the seams," said James Fielder, vice president for
acquisitions for Robert B. Aikens & Associates, the developer. "It was shot down
in discussions with the municipality. I didn't think it had a snowball's chance
it would go through."

What gives developers any confidence that there is a market for shopping mall
villages?

"This is the American cultural response to boredom with the suburbs," said Alex
Krieger, chairman of the department of urban planning at the Harvard Graduate
School of Design. "Clothing suburbia in urban mannerisms, for a market of people
who think it's funky to have restaurants and shops downstairs ? it's a great
marketing gimmick, but it's pretend urbanism."

"What the developers don't bank on," he added, "is that if it succeeds, those
folks above Banana Republic and Pomodoro's will start complaining about longer
shop hours, liquor licenses, pedestrian traffic. It's succeeding now because
it's a novelty."

Retailers also question the idea's basic equations.

"For developers it works, because it adds a good-sounding thing to the economic
package," Howard Lester, chairman of Williams-Sonoma, said. "But I don't think
residential means a heck of a lot to retailers. I need 80,000 households to
drive a Pottery Barn or Pottery Barn Kids." Mr. Lester, who is not joining
Santana Row because he already has shops in a mall across the street, added, "I
don't know that the fact people are living above makes it more attractive to me
as a customer."

On a recent Sunday at Santana Row, a dozen shoponauts stomping up the concrete
steps to view model apartments presented a diversity of opinion.

"It's going to attract single people, with fewer attachments," said Karen Dalal,
33, who lives in a ranch- style house a mile away. "I mean, I have a couple of
dogs. I'm not going to bring them into a community like this."

Laura Ward, 32, on tour with her partner, Brent Gregersen, 31, said, "For me,
personally, because I have two children, it just doesn't seem like it will be
right."

Neither dog runs nor playgrounds are in the plans at Santana Row.

But there will be a Starbucks and a Chili's and 19 other restaurants, said
Steven J. Guttman, chairman and chief executive of Federal Realty Investment Trust.

"It's a good example of how the market for something as mundane as housing has
changed from a good that somebody buys to a package of services, only one of
which is a residential living space," said Peter Francese, founder of American
Demographics magazine.

"The people doing this have realized that `it's the amenities, stupid,' " he
said. "What do people want in a lifestyle ? not what do people want in a
four-walled box."

Robert Gibbs, a retail consultant who helps developers incorporate urban
thinking into suburban projects, says that aging baby boomers might well prefer
the mall as a mailing address.

"They're coming onto the market looking for smaller multifamily luxury housing
in town," he said. "They spent their lives in suburbs, driving their kids to
soccer. They want to be able to walk to shops and restaurants. Their tax
advisers are telling them they don't have to own a home ? because they don't
need the tax deduction ? but to sell the four- bedroom $400,000 empty nest, put
the money in the bank, rent a $2,000 apartment and live on interest."

Mr. Gibbs added dryly, "The smarter new shopping centers know this."

Ms. Franz, the software consultant, wasn't packing up house just yet.

"This is huge ? it's like a mall," she said, looking up Santana Row's dirt
avenues. "How do you find comfort living at the mall?"

See the original here.

2002-01-25T14:25:00.000-05:00

A few things.

One, it's been a while, once again. I have been busy with other stuff, though I don't have evidence of it to show you. Perhaps the best I can do is to tell you I've been continuing to learn about this world we share and taking things in.

Two. But I did have occasion to go out again last night to hear James H. Kunstler's newest rantings about suburbia and our "national car slum." Music to my ears, of course. He was giving a short talk at Olsson's at Metro Center (one of three downtown locations of a local bookstore chain, not a big conglomerate, thank you very much). He covered much of the same ground as at NBM, but without the benefit of his usual slide show of examples of horrendous suburban shlock—"franchise fry pits," (fast food joints) "cold storage facilities," (schools, day care centers, office buildings, anything really) and "maximum security prisons" (schools).

He spent a few minutes explaining how places we have built in the past 50 years engender near-psychotic conditions in suburban adults and, most importantly, their spawn. Suburban kids, he says, have no reality based on history (in most cases, the place they grow up didn't exist five minutes before they were born) and no foreseeable future. It was an interesting parallel that he brought to bear on the whole ideal of suburbia and I thought one of the more insightful observations he's made.

Happily, the discussion was well-attended and a Q&A afterward afforded someone in the audience to dispel an earlier questioner's assumption that most of the folks in the audience were from Montgomery County (Maryland). To my pleasure, it was made clear that probably better than half of the audience lived in the city. I also took the opportunity to get my copy of "The City in Mind" signed before my wife and I walked home together.

Three. Today I dropped in on Jeffrey Zeldman's site and happened upon "," a great piece in his continuing dispatches of his "Glamorous Life." In it, he describes many of the niceties of living in a world beyond his individual self, aided mainly by his favorable condition of being a Manhattan resident.
More...

2001-11-06T17:07:00.000-05:00

This Just In...
A good piece from the Philadelphia Daily News about my original fears of people giving up on cities after September 11...Daily News | OUR SECRET WEAPON AGAINST TERROR

2001-11-06T14:45:00.000-05:00

Shellac'ing the Truth

No matter what you call it, it's still suburbia. This ad caught my eye today as I was reading a story on the Post's website. It's for a new subdivision in Vienna, VA (along with others in Tysons Corner and elsewhere in Sprawlville NoVa USA).

This particular link is to "Oakton Village" (don't you just get goosebumps with such a quaint name?). The introduction says it's inspired by Earnest Michaux ("the father of the bicycle"), Joseph Strauss ("builder of the Golden Gate Bridge"), and Hans Christian Andersen ("author of over 168 tales of wonder"). What?

With such amenities as "garages thoughtfully tucked in back", how could you not want to kill yourself in this new bedroom community? And such a steal at $700 K. I suppose "quaint, easily maintained homesites" is a euphemism for "extremely small lots."

For half this, you could have my house on Capitol Hill, and be able to ditch the car.

I guess I just don't get it.

See John Laing Homes of Maryland/Virginia/Washington D.C. - Neighborhood Guide: Oakton Village for more fun.

2001-10-29T12:54:00.000-05:00

Another Great Car Ad...

In another example of our culture's stupidity, I have seen an ad over the past few weeks that captures the essence of our car-centric life. A family of four or five suburbanites leave their uber-mansion and pile into a large refrigerator...er, minivan (maker and model irrelevant) and heads out to do some camping. On the way, the cutaways show the family members each giving one of the virtues of this new addition to the family. Dad talks about how it provides the space needed for all of the junk the family carts around, Mom talks about how sporty it is or some other nonsense, and so on. But the kicker is the teenage girl's line: "It's like a moving couch." Oh dear God. That's just about the saddest thing I've ever heard. These people really need to get out more.

Apologies to those that own minivans or think they feel like couches.

2001-10-29T12:37:00.000-05:00

It's Been a While

I just didn't have the heart to rail about suburbia for the last couple of months, given the tragic events of September 11. But recent weeks have added fuel to my vigor. Discussion is mounting in Washington and in other big cities (notably New York) about decentralizing. Manhattan companies that lost their buildings in the attacks have already relocated to suburban New Jersey and the Federal government will surely use the attacks as fodder for their continued dispatch to Washington's sprawling suburbs.

This scares me for two reasons: (1) the nation was just starting to make progress toward more intelligent ways of developing our resources, partly expressing itself in a movement back toward center cities; and (2) decentralizing will not solve the problem of terrorism. In fact, in at least one way, spreading out may exacerbate the threats of at least one form of terror--bioterrorism. In the Washington Post today, there's a story about the contrast between the response by urban Departments of Health to the anthrax scares and a sprawlville Hamilton Township, NJ's lack of a coordinated health service, which inhibited an immediate response.
See more.

**********

Who'll benefit from this kind of hysteria and poor judgment? Suburban developers and prospectors, of course. An article from last fall entitled "The New Suburban Office: Cost Efficient, High Performance" from the Pension Real Estate Association, captures the nastiness of their ploy best. Particularly noteworthy is the discussion of parking:

"One of the primary perks for today's employee is the location of the work-place. The long commute to a CBD is time consuming, frequently frustrating and often expensive. On the other hand, the Efficient Office is built in the suburbs where many employees live, thus reducing drive time and increasing an employee's personal time outside the office. Then, once in the parking lot, employees do not want to have a long walk to their offices. Therefore, it is critical that free parking space not only be available to all employees, but it also must not be situated at a distance from the office. We have estimated that 5 or 6 spaces per 1,000 SF of office space affords all employees the opportunity to drive to work if they so choose."

Is this guy for real? I don't have much hope for a new era of enlightened development with statements like this.
The whole thing is available as a PDF here

**********

Lastly, a neighborhood friend pointed me to a piece in today's Baltimore Sun singing the merits of a new New Urbanist project in southern Howard County (south of Baltimore). It's billed as "better than Columbia" (the last TND project, built by Rouse back in the 80s and 90s). I find the whole thing laughable, and sad. It's so obvious that people want more "traditional" neighborhoods, but aren't willing to actually live in one. Why? Hmmm. Racism, greed, and ignorance come to mind. An intractable love for the car also does. But mostly, I think, it's a lack of intelligence and logic. If building more of these kinds of boneheaded developments will keep suburbanites at bay, I'm all for it. It'll keep what little green space is within an hour of Washington from being further gobbled up by vinyl-sided "town"-homes.

Get the whole joke here.

2001-08-28T11:42:00.000-04:00

Some Needed Comic Relief

My wife sent along a great piece from The Onion today...

Family Of Five Found Alive In Suburbs

The tongue-in-cheek article shows how the suburbs emasculate society from culture and create places of little cultural value or appeal. It also points out the tedium and mediocrity of public places that suburbanites learn to endure.
-------
My slogan for The Olive Garden:
"When You're Here, You're in Suburbia"

2001-08-03T14:30:00.000-04:00

American Dreamers Suck

In a sweet little piece about the suckers who buy into the "American Dream" of suburbia, the Washington Post today gives a look at those who would buy in the deep suburbs seeking "Norman Rockwell mees Lake Wobegone." Sad, I know, but this is what Americans still think they can do. Build fake places of single purpose (residential only), single class (upper-middle), and single race (usually) thinking they can create "community" in what was only a few months before a cow pasture or cornfield. As the article rightly points out, community is not a commodity you can buy. It is a collection of people, ideas, philosophies, cultures, religions, food, and ethos that makes a place have a soul. The problem with the suburbs is that they are too often built by a single hand with the ultimate goal of maximizing the profit from the land they've developed.

The end result is that people are secondary to the concept. Not only is the actual design of the suburbs bad (identical houses set back an identical distance from the street, with exactly the same number of trees planted in the yard, and so on), but the feel of the suburbs is also atrocious for the reasons above. You can't simply make community. But these people are trying. Such activities as the soccer league for 2-to-5 year olds and the Memorial Day fence-a-thon (in which neighborhood husbands "bonded" together by building each other's backyard fences) are examples of the bleakness of suburbia. But this line had me cackling: "...it also turned into an interior design tour. How many different ways can you faux finish a wall?" Couldn't have said it better myself. Read the full article.

On an aside, last night, while watching the 11:00 news, I saw an ad for the ?? Sedona, a new minivan. The ad portrays a suburban Dad carting his three kids around for what appears to be a Saturday filled with chores and soccer games. They leave their cookie-cutter neighborhood, stop at a blank-walled dry cleaners (drive-through), a blank-walled pet store, a blank-walled big box store, and then ultimately to the soccer field, where they are joined by countless other suburbanites. The ad ends when they return home to the mother, waiting at the door with a knowing look on her face. Her one line: "I do this every day." Sad. Truly sad. Car companies sentenced most of America to this existence, and then pay homage to it in their commercials 50 years later.

2001-07-17T16:03:00.000-04:00

Listening to the Master

Today I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture given by James Howard Kunstler, the celebrated author of the "Nowhere" series (The Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere). In his books, Kunstler talks much about the development of American suburbs in the postwar era and draws some great conclusions about why we have the problems we do today in this country. While I may not agree with everything he says, I find his points very valid. Having grown up in the great abyss that is suburban America, I can appreciate many of his points.

The lecture held true to his ideology: it demonstrated many of the ideas in his books with lucid illustrations of some of our worst suburban monstrosities. From blank brick walls facing the street, to the nature Band-aid (a hapless planting of junipers and other shrubs in a median strip or against one of the faceless walls), Kunstler drew laughter and applause repeatedly in his presentation. The whole point, however, was that America needs to start building places that are worth caring about. This concept marries well with my feelings about bringing back livable, walkable, breathable cities and towns, especially my own. Having meant to read his books for some time, I finally went to the Building Museum's bookshop and promptly stood in line to have them signed.

In the future, I hope to open a dialog with Mr. Kunstler and perhaps get his insights into some of the problems we are dealing with in my community. Maybe his guidance will help us to realize some of the changes he's been able to witness in his home town of Saratoga Springs, NY. We'll see.

2001-07-03T13:34:00.000-04:00

Fueling the Fire Redux

As promised, the responses to the article I wrote to Dr. Gridlock, our local traffic maven, concerning his unbalanced coverage of alternative means of getting around, were numerous. In fact, each edition of the paper's "Extra" section (11 total) carried different letters. Remarkably (*not*), the editions printed in the outer suburbs were most vociferously opposed to my charge that suburbia is stupid and that those who choose to live there deserve what they get in the gridlock department. Few of the letters of support (there were many) were printed in these editions. Also, curiously, the headline varies drastically from county to county, depending on the kind of response the editors hoped to conjure. Here's a sampling: "Long Commute or Short Commute? Readers Hash Out the Benefits," "Taking Sides: Close In or Far Out?", "Are Suburbanites to Blame for their Own Commuting Headaches?", and "Only Themselves to Blame?". So much for opening people's minds...

The various editions with links to their responses follow:

Arlington/Alexandria
Anne Arundel County
Fairfax County
Howard County
Loudoun County
Montgomery County
Prince George's County
Prince William County
Southern Maryland
The District

Enjoy!

2001-07-03T12:39:00.000-04:00

Achenbach on Suburbia

One of my favorite Post columnists wrote a piece back in February excoriating Northern Virginia's lack of foresight in planning and building roads and the "towns" around them. It's very tongue-in-cheek and expresses my views of my former world perfectly...
A River of Traffic Runs Through Virginia (washingtonpost.com)

2001-06-13T12:16:00.000-04:00

Fueling the Fire

Not happy to just sit back and watch the world spin by, I have taken to joining the discussions at my local paper (well, okay, it's a little bigger than that). First, I wrote to the notoriously suburban shim for the Washington Post ("Dr. Gridlock") and expressed my disappointment that he never advocates people changing their behavior from one of a car-centric lifestyle to other options. I wrote to him thinking it might have an impact on him personally and make him think more about his responses to readers. I didn't hear back from him for several months. Then, while I was on the aforementioned vacation, he ran the article on May 14.

Supposedly the article has generated a large amount of response, which, I suppose isn't a bad thing. But we'll see what tomorrow brings—that's when the responses are supposed to be printed.

I've also gotten my feet wet wrangling with some of the curmudgeons who write in to the Post's "Traffic" Message Boards. I found some worthy dialog on the recent topic of a new bridge spanning the Potomac that would enable people living in Northern Virginia to commute more easily to Rockville and vice versa. The so-called "Techway" is at the heart of a battle brewing between the two jurisdictions (NoVA wants it; Maryland don't) and the region as a whole. Of course many folks have (rightfully) raised the point that they don't want further sprawl induced by the new road, particularly those living in the greenspace demarcated by liberal-minded Montgomery County in the last twenty years.

But my discussion came in when the focus turned to "fixing" the current lack of highways through downtown Washington. I vigorously defended the neighborhoods that one poster has a plan to rip up and tunnel under in order to ease the commutes of suburban-to-suburban drivers. I pointed out that these ideas had been attempted back in the late 60s/early 70s, and they were opposed then. They will continue to be opposed now.

Join the discussion, if you wish.

2001-05-30T14:56:00.000-04:00

I recently returned from a two-week vacation. I spent two weeks not even thinking about suburbia. I was in Alaska, a place where there's little development, let alone suburbia. There were a few places we visited that certainly could have benefitted from better design, and indeed, some better architecture, but for the most part, they didn't even approach the kind of sprawl that we endure on most of the East Coast.

Thus, my break over, I returned to the Washington area with a smile on my face and not a care in the world. That is, until my wife wanted to go to the Crate and Barrel outlet store in Old Town after I went to pick up a tux for a wedding the first weekend we were back. I dropped her at the store, found a parking space on the street, and proceeded to try to accomplish another errand a few blocks away. Walking, I found that some parts of Old Town Alexandria are much less pedestrian-friendly than others. A good example is a small strip mall that contains a pizza joint, a cleaners, and a Trak Auto. My goal was to purchase an air filter at the Trak, but although I could see it across the asphalt parking lot, being a pedestrian, I could not access the store directly from the sidewalk. Why? Because the hapless designer of this true suburban gem had encased the entire lot with a three foot high guard rail, owing to the lot's sloped terrain. Glad I wasn't trying to get to this place in the rain, for I might have also enjoyed a waterfall as I tried to enter from the sidewalk. Needless to say, the part was out of stock, making my experience all the more pleasurable.

*****

Last night, I went on a harried dash to return the tux mentioned above. I began my trip at Union Station, in my neighborhood, combining this errand with a trip to the post office (next door) to buy stamps and mail a bunch of the bills that had accumulated during my absence. I got on the train and went two stops to Gallery Place, where I transferred to the appropriate line to get me to King Street (in Old Town). About 25 minutes later, I was at the entrance to the King Street Station, trying to make my across another sea of parking, transit busses, and taxis to the sidewalk. There is no easy pedestrian access to the sidewalk, and crossings are rare at this particular tangle of streets.

I followed the sidewalk to the intersection of "Dangerfield" and "Diagonal." I waited for my chance to cross, as cars whizzed past. Finally, the light turned red and the WALK signal illuminated. First, a blue van blew through the light, turning right on red without stopping. Then, as I attempted to step into the crosswalk, another car, driven by an aggressive woman, attempted to do the same thing. When I demonstrated the clearly blinking "WALK" sign, she shouted "Then walk already", clearly miffed that I would have the gall to be a pedestrian in this place.

2001-05-09T15:03:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite sites on urban life is The New Colonist.

Richard Risemberg's April piece expresses my angst toward suburbia perfectly.

2001-05-09T14:59:00.000-04:00

Country Club Mentality

The whole idea of smart growth has at its roots the notion that people should live and work close to each other, not spread out across the land from one side to the other. The term is usually applied to efforts to prevent "sprawl" and to preserve open green spaces and such in outlying areas of metropolitan regions. But smart growth is also about developing the urban core in a way that is, well, urban. I live in a place called Capitol Hill. You may have heard of it on your evening news. Or on NPR. Or any time some big decision is made in this country.

But Capitol Hill is more than the home of Congress. It's also an historic neighborhood in Washington that has been experiencing a renaissance of late. For the past five years, the city as a whole has been experiencing a resurgence of importance to the region, as a city, and as a place to live. Capitol Hill is just beginning to see the wave of development that much of the western parts of the city have enjoyed in the last 3-4 years. The casual observer might think that this sounds great. In reality, there are people that don't think so.

Last night, I witnessed something that I couldn't believe. I went to a meeting where the topic of discussion was a proposed redevelopment of a hospital and nursing facility on the wane. The developer intends to build about 340 apartments and condos, and some 20 townhouses. This was the first meeting I was able to attend, but there have been numerous others over the past year on the topic, each time with the developer and architect returning with revised plans for the project. The neighbors immediately adjacent to the site are typically middle-class, white, and highly educated. They are professionals—lawyers (too many), doctors, lobbyists, economists, Congressional staffers, and the like—and, subsequently, are quite good at putting forth their opinion.

The issues that consumed most of the two-hour meeting concerned parking and density. These educated, intelligent people have taken to making parking their cross to bear and are doing everything in their power to scale down the proposal to something they find "reasonable." I sat in the audience, quite dumbfounded, to witness one woman actually lament that she would have to clean out her garage and use it to park her car, as a result of this development. The fact that she even has off-street parking in the city is astounding. The fact that she doesn't use it is ridiculous. The fact that she is trying to impress her will on the project is obnoxious.

We're not talking about a whorehouse. Or a halfway house. Or a trash transfer station (things that other areas of the city are faced with beating back). We're talking about a project that would bring new taxpayers, more demand for services, and redevelopment of an eyesore in the neighborhood. Being relatively naïve and still new to the neighborhood (I only moved here two years ago), I spoke up and tried to be the voice of reason. I suggested that higher density makes sense in a city. That new people would help us to encourage economic development and perhaps garner us a grocery store in walking distance, thereby enabling us to be less dependent on our cars. I also pointed out that the project site hugs two bus lines, and is close to two others. Further, Union Station (housing Amtak, commuter lines, and a Metro subway station) is only six blocks away. Besides some rolled eyes and menacing glances, I received no response from the crowd.

One thing I forgot to mention: the developer intends to provide one parking space for each unit in the complex. The city only requires one space per three units. The common assumption seemed to be that the newcomers would all come with two and three cars in tow. In reality, many people who live in the city do not own any cars. In fact, when my wife and I moved here from the suburbs, we each owned a car. As a result of our ability to walk to work and many services, we are down to just one car. But fear seems to be the basis for most bad decisions. And this one will probably be no different.

2001-05-09T13:33:00.000-04:00

Just Getting Started

I'm not a social scientist, sociologist, urban planner, economist, or any of these by profession, but I do know that I hate suburbia. There's so many reasons, fostered over 25 years of living in it, reading about it, experiencing it, and growing to despise it. This blog will be a collection of vignettes and essays about why I think that surburban life in America is wrong and why I hope that we will realize as a society that it's time to rethink how we do things. Before it's too late.