Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

NO SURPRISE

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

It should come as not surprise to anyone that, as Jim Bacon’s 26 April post is titled: there is
“Lots of Room for Growth Left in Fairfax County.”

The surprise is that the Greater Merrifield re construction effort has stayed on track for so many years.

It was decades ago that graduate planning students outlined parameters for how the area along Gallows Road between I-66 on the north and US Route 50 on the south to Gallows Road on the south could to evolve to become the METRO-station-anchored Zentrum of an Alpha Community.

This Alpha Community would be bordered by Greater Tysons Corner on the north, Greater Fairfax Center on the west, Greater Springfield / Annandale on the south and Greater Bailies Crossroads / Falls Church on the east.

That there is “Lots of Room for Growth Left in Fairfax County” has a theme at SYNERGY/ Planning for 35 years. We demonstrated this point during the 1972 to 1975 Pause For Planning (PLUS) process in Fairfax County.

Over the next few years in our work with the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, the Fairfax Committee of 100, the League of Women Voters, the Gang of 10, the Sierra Club and the Fairfax Audubon Society the plenty of room reality evolved into the mantra:

“If all of Fairfax County were redeveloped at Reston Density, 2/3 of the county would be vacant.”

As years went by the percentage of openspace become somewhat smaller and the data was refined to became the basis for “Five Critical Realities the Shape the Future” which is a Backgrounder at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com . The data and analysis of this work became the framework for Regional Metrics.

No one ever challenged the assumptions and data in the Backgrounder. Many doubted that such “radical” transformation would ever take place “because that is not what the market demands.”

Later we demonstrated that these more functional and transportable settlement patterns are exactly what the market supports.

Those who profit from, or hope to profit from, settlement pattern dysfunction are counting on the fact that regulation changes and education processes are never put in place to implement the transformation.

The jury is still out on whether citizens will come to understand that there is “Lots of Room for Growth Left in Fairfax County” while there are still resources to make Fundamental Changes possible. The Greater Merrifield example provides cause for hope.

EMR

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10 responses to “NO SURPRISE”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Aren’t we running out of metro stations

    The silver line will help I guess

    NMM

  2. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    There is not a single station-area that is yet approaching Balance.

    Human settlement patterns are organic systems that continue to grow or die.

    EMR

  3. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “Human settlement patterns are organic systems that continue to grow or die.”

    Wouldn’t that include rural areas, too?

    How do you define balance? Does it include a situation that allows people to continue to use automobiles when appropriate?

    How can human settlement patterns grow without having some imbalance? It would be nice if we could grow and still have balance, but I’m afraid we are more like gawky, clumsy adolescents, still trying to fit our new skin.

    As it stands now, we are not even close to balance. I think balance includes not just housing and jobs, but sufficient transportation of whatever type works, including automobiles. I think it means we have enough common places to gather and play, and enough conservation spaces so we don’t feel like we are living in New York. I think it means we have enough housing so that everyone can have some shelter suitable to their condition. I think it means we have readily available schools that teach more than the government prescribed drivel: that include trades, arts, science, engineering, and humanities.

    I think balance requires a near end to NIMBY’s. That we approve tolerance more often than we approve gated communities.

    And I certainly wouldn’t consider Merrifield anywhere near close to balanced, even if it is different from what it once was. It seems to me that balance would require that those old semi-industrial areas like Merrifield would have to be replaced somewhere. I’m not the first to say so. The Post some months back reported on the plight of companies that were being forced out becasue they were no longer sufficiently “upscale”.

    Finally, what is balanced for one neighborhod density might be completely inappropriate for another. If both neighborhoods must grow or die, how do they morph from one to the othere without imbalance?

    Isn’t imbalance what causes the driving force for our economy? Like heat flowing from one end of an iron bar to the other? Isn’t what drives NIMBYY’s the search for equilibrium (at their end of the scale)?

  4. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Let me ask another question. How would you improve the balance at a place like McPherson Square?

    How much would it cost?

  5. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    The Orange Line is over-crowded today. Traffic anywhere near Merrifield (the Dun Loring Station) is terrible. Local schools are filled with trailers. Soccer and other fields are over-used. Real estate taxes are up around 90% for many Fairfax County residents.

    Why would anyone living near Merrifield, not involved in the real estate development industry, want more development in and around Merrifield? Why should they fall on their sword?

  6. Blueweeds Avatar
    Blueweeds

    Isn’t Falls Church an independent City in the midst of developing its own City Center? The Merrifield development concept makes many of the same assumptions that your post contains – that Falls Church is just an eastern boundry district of Fairfax County. Merrifield development competes with the Falls Church City Center concept and is just another example of a monolithic jurisdiction doing whatever it wants regardless of what its neighbors think. Too bad.

  7. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    A Few Thoughts for Blueweeds:

    “Isn’t Falls Church an independent City in the midst of developing its own City Center?”

    As I recall they call it a “town center.” What ever they call it, it will never be more than an Alpha Village Center due to the fact that as an “Independent City” Fall Chruch had the power to deflect METRO station-areas so they are outside its borders.

    We can all hope that the Greater Falls Church Village Center will become a vibrant, Balanced place and that it evolves to become one of the Alpha Villages in either Greater North Alrlington, Greater Merrifield or Greater Tysons Corner all of which could evolve to have a high capacity shared-vehicle system station area as its Zentrum (aka, Community Center).

    “The Merrifield development concept makes many of the same assumptions that your post contains – that Falls Church is just an eastern boundry district of Fairfax County.”

    (See Above)

    “Merrifield development competes with the Falls Church City Center concept and is just another example of a monolithic jurisdiction doing whatever it wants regardless of what its neighbors think.”

    Merrifield may also evlove to be only a Alpha Village and thus be Village within one of the surrounding existing Beta (future Alpha) Communities.

    “Too bad.”

    What is too bad is that the City of Falls Church, the City of Fairfax and the Town of Vienna have all done everything they could to stop the natural evolution of settlement patterns and will eventually become Village-scale agglomerations within larger urban systems.

    Greater Vienna is already one of the Villages of Greater Tysons Corner and Fairfax City is the eastern of the three Villages that make up Greater Fairfax Center.

    I am not sure it is “too bad” but it will cost millions if not billions extra to evolve functional patterns due to the “independent” vis “regionally intelligent” actions of these three municipalities. Of course, Fairfax County has, for the most part, only made things worse.

    EMR

  8. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    TMT:

    You still do not have your arms around the concept of Balance.

    The Orange Line is now over-crowded.

    But it is only over-crowded at some times and only in one direction at a time — AM in, PM out.

    The only way to imporve the function of METRO and the only way to provide Mobility and Access or Affordable and Accessible housing for those living, working, seeking services, recreation and amenity in the nine Beta Communities that fall in Fairfax County is for each to evolve toward Balance.

    All other approaches result in settlement pattern dysfunction growing worse.

    It goes without saying that the Wealth Gap also widens and the prospect for prospertiy, stability and sustainability dims due to the erosion of democracy and free and well informed markets.

    EMR

  9. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    One other thing:

    That 30 April WaPo story about more jobs in Fairfax than workers over the next 25 years:

    Not possible with Balanced Communities.

    EMR

  10. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “The Orange Line is now over-crowded.

    But it is only over-crowded at some times and only in one direction at a time — AM in, PM out.”

    Right. So in order to make the orange line more balanced, and more efficient, all we need to do is have a) more people living closer in, like around McPherson Square, and more jobs located where the Terminal Metro stations are now.

    That way people could Metro out or metro in to work. On the other hand, if we did that, the people that Mtro in could change places with the people who metro out, and then we wouldn’t need Metro, or the enorrmous expense that comes with it.

    But even more important is the fact that this sort of “balance” would still be anchored by the metro station areas, and it would say nothing about balance across the 95% of the rest of the region which is served mainly by automobiles.

    Yet whenever jobs move out the ugly sprawl word is raised. That is because we realize what a small impact Metro really has on how we conduct our lives.

    Let’s say that transit accounts for 5% of travel, not including freight. Let’s say that, for those that use Metro, it accounts for 20% of their travel. If you have to increase density by more than 10% to improve the functionality of transit, then it is a dead loss as far as improving the functionality of transportation because you increase congestion more than you decrease it through transit.

    As it stands, Metro is doing exactly what it was designed to do: provide additional peak hour capacity. But we provided no real way to expand that capacity, and now we find that Metro faces the same constraints as the rest of our transportation system: peak capacity is expensive, and we have allowed ourselves no way to expand it. 25 butt numbing Metro stops is not a real option, and neither is double tracking.kpxxaju

    We should admit to Metro’s real costs, identify who really benefits, and charge accordingly. If Metro’s real costs include rebalancing and entire city, then they may be simply too high.

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