Well down in the post titled “The Intellectual Pretensions of Suburb Bashing” Peter G. said:
“EMR,
“It’s so frustrating. I can never win. Just when I think I come up with a really good post, you tell me I got the vocabulary all wrong. If I get the vocabulary right, you’ll say my point is all wrong.
“Geez!
“Peter Galuszka”
Peter:
EMR did not intend to be critical in any way. As many other comments following you post suggest, settlement patterns that have evolved since 1940 are different things to different people.
All we say is to understand why patterns are functional or dysfunctional everyone must speak the same language. If you do not like ours, come up with your own.
Here is a little exercise for readers:
Take the original post by Peter, Jim Bacon’s 6:59 AM post (good to see Jim up early!) and Groveton’s posts of 12:13 PM and 12:59 PM. Print them out and circle all the times that “suburb” and “suburban” are used. No look at those circled words and see how many different things they describe, especially in the context of the many different experiences noted in the other comments – some good, some bad; some accurate, some ‘adjusted’ to fit preconceived ideas and agendas.
Peter: I have not visited or lived in some of the places you have. But I do know something about one place you visited. My office / studio at North Lake Cluster in the Fair Lakes Neighborhood of the North Village in Fairfax Center, VA.
Was that place “Urban” or less than urban?
To refresh your memory the residents of North Lake Cluster live at 30 persons per acre – yes even with that great view of the lake and the Openspace from the windowns and decks. You may recall the Four Seasons photos of the very large Swamp Maple from the front porch that could have been taken in Sherwood Forest.
It turns out that if one half the Clusters in an Alpha Community were at that 30 pn acre density, then 25 percent could be Multi-Household dwellings (at 40 to 60 per acre) and 25 percent could be Single Household Detached Dwellings on quarter to half acre lots (at 10 persons per acre) and achieve 10 persons per acre at the Alpha Community Scale.
That distribution of dwelling unit types was the original plan for the almost Alpha Community of Greater Reston. The ratio could have been 30 / 40 / 30 as it is in Village-scale Burke Centre and in the still Beta Community of Columbia, MD, Peachtree City GA, etc.
The density of the Cluster of Single Household Attached Dwellings listed above is just what our current dwelling is, here in Menlough Cluster next to the Clear Edge (the Town and County leaders word, not just EMRs) around Greater Warrenton-Fauquier.
Fairfax Center was designed to have a relative Balance of J / H / S / R / A and 55,000 residents on 5,500 acres. Given its context it has not done badly but for some unfortunate rezonings that undermined the Neighborhood Center service idea — everyone could walk to get weekly necessities in a 100,000 sq ft Neighborhood center, etc. Today it would have lots of live-work units…
Fairfax Center is still not that bad even with traffic from US Route 50, I – 66 and Fairfax Parkway running through the middle and is one of the three Beta Communities we choose to visit inside the Clear Edge. The worst “development” in Fairfax Center? The Fairfax Government Center, hands down.
During the Blueprint process, the Coalition for Smarter Growth came up with some good ideas to evolve Fairfax Center into a great Alpha Community: Fairfax “City” would become the third Village and the Fair Oaks Mall would be reconfigured to span both US Route 50 and I-66 and both the Core of Fairfax City and the new Core Village would be served by an extension of METRO.
But no, the economic activity was scattered across the R = 20 to R = 40 Radius Band and at far greater TOTAL cost.
Oh yes one other thing: Larry do you have no shame?
“…and it occurred to me that even after a gazillion tomes from EMR – I still don’t have a feel for what he thinks is an optimal density level for a balanced community.”
First, EMR has written one Tome and working on a second.
But more important, when reading this post do you not recall seeing the 10 Person Rule [10 Persons per Acre at the Alpha Community scale] at least 50 times in last two years? If TJI had not screwed up the BR archive, EMR could cite you the number of times it was mentioned.
Look, there are only Five Natural Laws of Human Settlement Pattern. You can write them on your arm with a Sharpie and refer to them when you get confused.
And on the Tysons issue. How many times has EMR suggested you read Column # 25, “The Shape of Richmond’s Future,” 16 Feb 2004 for the overall regional evolution process? And while you are at it # 65 “Balanced Communities,” 23 Aug 2005 which Jim Bacon’s header describes as “… Herewith is a primer on what they are and how to create them.”
EMR