More on Transit and Density and Suburban Urbanity

Here's a really interesting discussion of transit and density from the Washington Post:

Fairfax County's leaders have a theory. The way to reduce traffic and improve the quality of life in Tysons Corner and the rest of the million-person county, they say, is to cluster thousands of high-rise apartments and offices into areas near public transit.

And in response to those who argue that cramming in more towers and people seems like an unlikely way to reduce congestion, the leaders have a single word: Ballston.

That section of Arlington, along with the rest of the corridor between Rosslyn and Ballston, is a national model for "transit-oriented development" -- and it is now defining the debate over how to redevelop the Washington suburbs.

Over three decades, Arlington has transformed what was once a timeworn commercial strip into a thriving corridor of gleaming towers and busy sidewalks strung like an open necklace along Metro's Orange Line, which reached Ballston in 1979. Most notably, the surge in development along the corridor has produced relatively little additional automobile traffic, which is why Fairfax, Montgomery County and other suburbs are invoking the high-density model as the cure to their traffic woes.

What strikes me about this is that it stands a few assumptions about development on their head. Very often, people group "density" and "downtown" together. That is, people who advocate density are people who like "cities," and people who resist density are people who like "suburbia" or "sprawl."

But in the DC case the density in question is SUBURBAN density. Ballston and Arlington and Tysons are outside the District, but I suspect that they have a lot more density than anything inside the city limits. Which I think indicates that you can support towers and density and transit and all the rest--without necessarily supporting a huge build-up in the CBD. Now, a lot of times building up that CBD would make sense. But perhaps other times it would not.

Is it a horrible crime or a terrible disaster that these towers are going up in Northern Virginia instead of in Capitol Hill? It might be, particularly if the city can't make a go of it financially because of the loss in property taxes.

Still, I think it's interesting to watch how it plays out. In many ways--in terms of nightlife and restaurants and diversity--DC's suburbs are becoming downright metropolitan. Which leads to an even more intriguing question: What's "downtown"? Northern Virginia is not just a bedroom community for lobbyists and congressional staffers. If you look at Tysons and Reston and all the rest, you see a tremendous amount of tech, service and other employment. You have a major university in George Mason. You have major cultural institutions such as Wolf Trap and the Smithsonian's ball-busting new air and space museum out by Dulles.

A lot of lines seem to be getting blurred. It's harder to be "for cities" or "for suburbs" when the two start looking more and more alike.

Comments

[C. Briem]

Edge Cities are a phenomenon much more limited in Pittsburgh and environs for several reasons... and at their extreme in DC. Fairfax or other NVA places may safely be said to be 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) downtowns even. More on that is here:

Industry dynamics in the Washington, DC, area: has a second job core emerged? Monthly Labor Review. December 2006, Vol. 129, No. 12

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/12/art1exc.htm

sam, but what about the north shore? it's booming. the PG says so. it has to be true. two subway stations (a nice BJ for the owner of the new parking garage). another new hotel. more restaurants. odd, why aren't we having more fun? maybe it's because there are more T stops. after all, a quarter mile between the two under construction is a long walk. jesus. the PG story was absurd. mostly because of the subway stuff. this is one area where we've been on the same page from the start.

[sean mcdaniel]

sam, but what about the north shore? it's booming. the PG says so. it has to be true. two subway stations (a nice BJ for the owner of the new parking garage). another new hotel. more restaurants. odd, why aren't we having more fun? maybe it's because there are more T stops. after all, a quarter mile between the two under construction is a long walk. jesus. the PG story was absurd. mostly because of the subway stuff. this is one area where we've been on the same page from the start.

[sean mcdaniel]

hey, i meant to say..."maybe because there AREN'T more t-stops" on the n. shore.

[Sam M]

Ah yes. The North Shore. I suspect all the success is due to the crafty name change.

Or maybe it was the billion dollars in public money.

Has it risen that high yet? PNC Park? Heinz Field? The Tunnel? Etc?

For that amount of money, the government could have built 1,000 million dollar residences. And given them away.

Just saying.

[Sam M]

Chris,

Edge cities certainly are more prevalent in NVA than they are here. I don't know if we even have anything approaching them.

The interesting thing to me about places like Ballston, though, is that they feel like a whole different thing unto themselves. If Reston and Tysons lack certain elements of "city-ness," Ballston is even more wanting. At least it was when I was in that area. It didn't seem like much of an employment center. Overall, it seemed like less of a "place." It was just a place to live and eat. (If you can apply "just" to such things.)

What I might be really interested in seeing is to what extent this "suburb" is a suburb of DC, and to what extent it is a suburb of Reston/Tysons/Etc. That is, how many people live in Ballston and commute AWAY from DC?

I think this is a growing phenomenon. But I have no idea how it's hashing out there. But it does seem like Ballston would be a reasonable place to live if one half of a couple worked in "the city," and another out at AOL.

Either way, DC does seem like an incredibly interesting place to view these forces in action.

Last, I still wonder: Is it tragic that these huge condo projects are going on in NVA instead of "downtown"? We can talk about that area's growth. But the fact of the matter is, the District has seen the same flight of residents impacting many cities. (From more than 800,000 in 1950 to fewer that 600,000 today.) And that happened despite EXPLOSIVE expansion in the region's economy and job base.

Sort of the flipside to Pittsburgh in a lot of ways. Job growth. Economic growth. Population growth (Pittsburgh has held pretty steady in terms of MSA, but the DC area has gone bonkers, I think.) And, I might point out, massive investment in a widely respected transit system.

And still, the people moved out of the city.

I am sure riots didn't help. And a dysfunctional city government. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But no matter. The damn place is such a weird mish-mash of city and suburb that it demands attentions. Or at least gawking.

[John Morris]

Sam,

I am close to being convinced. I think that I can help the city shrink and give it that rural flair that you crave.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07046/762136-56.stm

[C. Briem]

I think my overly subtle point was that for DC at least, it may be time to think of these new concentrations not as "edge cities" but actually as downtowns unto themselves... which then shades some of these debates a new way.

I thought John's PG reference was to one of the regular stories about the one farm that still exists within the city limits. ha.

[Susan]

DC height requirements preclude building up. Cost of living in VA is lower than DC or MD.

[Ray Hyde]

Arlington now has a large percentage of people commuting out of the county to work, not only to Tysons and Reston, but to the District and Maryland. In fact Arlington now has a higher number and percentage of people working outside of the county than before Metro was built.