Want to know the cost of dysfunctional human settlement patterns and the Agency costs of creating them?
For Tysons Corner try $20 Billion over the next two decades. And that does not include the direct and indirect costs of citizens living and working in Greater Tysons Corner.
Not to worry, it will never happen because of The Great Recession, but it gives anyone who understands the difference between functional and dysfunctional settlement patterns a great yardstick.
How do you get that total?
Well if a Functional Station-Area Strategy for Tysons Corner had been created, most of the cost ($5 Billion) of the METRO extension could have been captured from the increase in value due to station platform proximity – especially the use of land that is in the Rights-of-way that citizens already own.
(Yes, there would have been a deflation of the value in land at the outer fringes of the station- areas but that WAS – it is gone now – speculative value based on the willingness of Agencies to kick in the $20 Billion.)
And in addition to that $5 Billion, with a Functional Station-Area Strategy most of the estimated $15 Billion in infrastructure “improvements” – primarily to support Large, Private vehicles – would not be required or would be covered by those who profit from the enhanced Mobility and Access that METRO brings. (See today’s WaPo Page 1B: “Tysons will need $15 Billion – ‘with a B”)
But for The Great Recession these pipedreams might come to pass. In that case citizens could only hope that the members of AICP, AIA, ABA would pass the hat and pay the $20 Billion bill. They might ask their client land owners to make a contribution.
Fair allocation of these location-variable costs will only happen after contributing to dysfunctional human settlement patterns becomes a crime against humanity.
Please do NOT ask: What is a “Functional Station-Area Strategy”? Just go back and read the 8 September 2008 column “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies,” the 20 plus or minus columns on Tysons Corner and the Dulles corridor that proceeded that column and the referenced material SYNERGY has been producing since 1984.
On a more positive note, for those who wonder about why ‘family’ has become a Core Confusing Word with respect to human settlement pattern and why SYNERGY now uses ‘Household’ as in Single Household Attached Dwelling, see “Single living surges across D.C. region” in Wednesday’s WaPo. (At least WaPo editors did not capitalize ‘region.’)
And one more note on Vocabulary and Core Confusing Words: The new “Save-us-money-and-pretend-we-are-doing-readers-a-service WaPo redo includes a new section called “local living.” It deals with issues related to the local planet (aka, Earth), the local nation-state (aka, US of A), the local region (sometimes the Northeast MegaRegion, sometimes the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region, sometimes the Virginia SubRegion, sometimes … you get the idea. And then there is the confusion of municipal Agency with ‘community.’)
An indirect crime against humanity.
EMR