Previously in Tales of Two Cities, I’ve pointed out the Columbia Town Center does not exist in a vacuum. All around us communities are rethinking how they manage growth and looking for ways to maintain their individual identities. In this story by Katherine Shaver and Miranda S. Spivack in The Washington Post today the reporters examine both the successes and challenges of creating “walkable” communities.
“The nation's two largest groups -- baby boomers shedding their houses as they become empty nesters and millennials reaching their 30s and moving into their own homes -- largely prefer densely populated, walkable communities, experts say.
Urban planners project that 86 percent of the growth in new households will be single people or couples without children at home -- and neither group wants to live in remote suburbs or in houses surrounded by big lawns.”
The line between success and failure hinges on getting the formula right.
“Developers still must persuade people accustomed to driving to keep their cars parked, and town centers have to provide the right mix of retail, residential and office space to compete in a crowded marketplace.”
Do the plans for Columbia Town Center have the right mix?
Possibly. There is already a strong retail core with the Mall. The office sector is currently struggling but connecting the existing buildings more closely with residences and stores will help differentiate office space in Town Center from the more typical suburban office parks like Columbia Gateway.
The real question, in my mind is whether the proposed 5,500 housing units will be enough to insure that we get it right.
Daily
5 hours ago
4 comments:
I, too, read this article with some interest. It seemed well-researched at first, but as I made my way through it I came across many spurious "factoids." You quote a couple of them in your blog post:
“The nation's two largest groups -- baby boomers shedding their houses as they become empty nesters and millennials reaching their 30s and moving into their own homes -- largely prefer densely populated, walkable communities, experts say."
Experts? What experts? I saw no viable citations to these assertions. When I studied rhetoric and logic, one of the first rules I was taught was never use "experts say" as a reason or reference for decision making.
In the next paragraph, a hard figure of "86 percent" of one thing or another is attributed to unnamed "urban planners." Ah, I guess those are a subset of those experts. Again, not substatiated.
I was apalled by this article, because its main message was that politicians and developers know how and where people want to live, and they can't understand why people aren't just following merrily along.
All in all, this article was just continued marketing for a new product that developers want to package and sell to consumers, so they can maximize corporate revenue by developing these properties as densely as possible. If you can make it work, it is highly profitable--if you can get consumers to buy into it.
I was amused, however, by how the authors of the article stumbled all over themselves trying to avoid the essential truth they had uncovered: the majority of these suburban urban-center development and re-development projects has either failed already or is in the process of failing now.
Looks like most consumers aren't buying into the product.
ANON - a most excellent refutation of WB's weak and distorted presentation of this issue.
To add to your ammo, I bet if we took a poll of people who are not "about-to-retire baby boomers" who already live in Columbia, and especially those around Town Center, I bet they would say that they like things as they are, because, after all, they make a conscious decision to buy their current house in Columbia, based on the current layout of Columbia.
I guess WB's plan is to turn Town Center into a large "retirement community". LOL!!!!!!!!!
And, now WB's is unsure if 5000 new units is "enough" extra density. LOL again!!!!!!!!!
WB's facts are as thin as Kate Moss's waistline.
Hmmmm.... I was hoping this post would get more comments. Seems like the last word on this was said early on.
Saying 5500 may not be enough was just too outrageous to begin to address. And you're right, the first commenter pretty much covered it.
It's like saying we need an increase in the number of referendum signatures even though we have had several referenda and not one successful in the past 10 years.
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