Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

“Will Growth Shape You, or Will You Shape It?”

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

Stafford County, a locality that epitomizes the phrase “dysfunctional human settlement patterns,” is inviting fresh ways of looking at growth as it works on a new comprehensive plan. In a public hearing Monday, a 12-member committee entertained such notions as walkable communities, town centers and mixed-use development.

Jennifer Buske with the Stafford County Sun reported a number of spot-on comments during a public hearing Monday. Said Lee Quill of Cunningham-Quill Architects:

“Stafford’s screaming for a sense of place. … The courthouse area has amazing resources and there is tremendous opportunity there to create a town center. … Stafford is growing, I don’t have to tell you that. … So the question is, will growth shape you or will you shape it?”

“You will be surprised how little land is actually needed to create a great community,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Stafford has all the parts of a community – civic institutions, subdivisions, strip shopping, roadways and offices – yet they are so spread out that people must get into their cars to complete daily tasks. Mixed-use communities can place stores, schools, parks and other facilities within walking distance of homes.

“Three-fourths of trips under one mile are made by car and it’s these trips that clog all the roads,” said Ted Smart of Maryland Development Company. “Small neighborhood centers can keep people off arterial roads.”

Schwartz and Quill also sang the praises of grid street systems: “With a grid, you would be able to shut off a portion of Route 1 in your ‘downtown’ to hold multiple functions – like a parade,” Lee said. “The grid system allows the traffic to disperse.”

Currently, such smart growth concepts are, in a word, illegal. Stafford planner James Stepowany told the committee that county ordinances and zoning definitions — setback and buffer requirements, height restrictions and other rules — might need to be changed to allow a town center to take shape.

Moral of the story: Contemporary suburbia does not give consumers what they are looking for. It delivers what developers are allowed to build within the constraints of county codes. There is no free market in land development. There are regulations and subsidies but no free market.

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43 responses to ““Will Growth Shape You, or Will You Shape It?””

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    We can articulate the symptoms dyfsfunctional development/settlement patterns ad nauseum.

    We can “rah rah” advocacy to pursue a “vision” of communities that are more walkable/bikeable/connected and less auto dependent.

    And yes, we can remove regulatory impediments that say we “can’t”

    .. but what we cannot do – is change the way the market works and in my mind that is the “deal breaker”.

    People are not going to choose options that are said to be “better” for society if they are not “better” for them.

    They will choose from what the market offers.

    And I feel like what we are doing is promoting options to people that are not competitive with the other options the market offers.

    On that basis – dysfunctional settlement patterns win…

    Only when functional settlement patterns are a superior choice of what the market offers – will it succeed – in my view.

    Some would argue that some of this is perception and ingrained behaviors without justification.

    Agreed.

    But when a person drives 100 miles a day – every day – to their SFH on a 1/4 on a cul-de-sac that is 5 miles from bread and milk –

    it’s very difficult to convince them that their 5mile trip is “dysfunctional”.

    I’m not disagreeing with the description of the problem nor the promoted visions for “better”.

    But I am pointing out that the market trumps advocacy every time.

    One simple example. Every one of us could buy a solar roof that would cut our demand by 1/3 to 1/2 and we all know that it would have benefits beyond saving us money – to include reduction of mercury pollution ..

    so we have a wonderful.. perfectly rational advocacy.. that won’t work until the market does.

    I hang out with environmentalists – and not 1 in 100 does what is advocated. In fact, the major folks in my area that do this – are well-off retired republicans.

    🙂

  2. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Larry, I agree, Smart Growth advocates have to prove the success of their ideas in the marketplace. Not everyone will want to live a “smart growth” lifestyle. Some people do. But here’s the key point: Nobody can live a smart growth lifestyle if zoning codes and comprehensive plans outlaw it!

    If we legalize smart growth and let it compete with conventional development on a level playing field, which means making people pay the location-variable costs of their transportation choices, we’ll see more smart growth than we do now.

  3. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Very much agree.

    WITHIN a community like Stafford one can advocate removing obstacles to building smart(er) growth communities.. some called them “mixed use” but my point, not well made, was that no matter how “smart” you build Stafford – if the folks who live there commute 80-100 miles to jobs in NoVa that even though Stafford has met the principles that issues fundamental to the overall framework have not been met.

    Isn’t this not only a Paradox but a major Paradox that.. I feel.. is not really addressed in the advocacy for building “smart(er)”?

  4. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    No one said that smart growth is a silver bullet. As you rightly observe, it is not within Stafford’s power to change the fact that jobs in the Washington New Urban Region are located closer to the urban core and that many residents commute 50 miles one-way. What the county can do is limit the congestion that occurs from non-commute driving.

  5. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Reminder:

    Smart Growth is better than Dumb Growth but it, like New Urbanism are only shadows on the cave wall.

    We need to emerge into the light with Balanced Communities in sustainable New Urban Regions.

    Plato Updated.

    EMR

  6. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “And I feel like what we are doing is promoting options to people that are not competitive with the other options the market offers.”

    I think this is remarkably similar to my previous statement that if you want more conservation, then make it more profitable.

    Or, as you say:

    “People are not going to choose options that are said to be “better” for society if they are not “better” for them.”

    But, in order to make presently unpopular or unprofitable activities and places both profitable and popular, we are going to have to accept that some things are going to have to be subsidized for the general good of the populace, and that means the general populace is going to have to pay for them.

    Which brings us to corrollary #2, the topic of much of what goes on here: “Society is not going to choose to pay for options that are said to be “better” for people if they are not “better” for them, personally.”

    We are going to have to seriously re-think what is an incentive and what is a subsidy, who is getting what from whom, and who should get paid and who should pay.

    Frankly, I don’t think there is that much money. Byt the time we all pay each other to achieve all our laudable goals there will be nothing left, and everyone is worse off.

    So, back to square one. If what we are doing is promoting options to people that are not competitive with the other options the market offers, then we are going to have to raise more money than the market does in order to make them competitive. I don’t think there is that much money.

    —————————–

    No, I actually don’t think that each of us can choose to buy a solar roof. Some of us can, for othere it would mean having a roof, but no house, or worse. Many who could and could not choose to buy a solar roof could equally well achieve a better rate of savings through insulation and caulking.

    I kind of figure if a guy is driving a 100 miles a day, he can find most of what he needs between home and work. I also know from cold hard experience that he may not really have a choice in that either, or at least not good ones.

    Saying that we would (all) be better off if we choose (individually) to do things that are not in our personal best interests is a false argument, and false economy. We are going to each lose a little on every sale of solar roofs, and make up the loss by buying in volume.

    Not gonna work that way. So, put a tax on mercury emissions, and use the money to lower the price of solar roofs. Make sure the power company gets some of the action from all the electricity developed (since they helped pay through it through taxes anyway). Set it up so it is a win-win situation and everybody gets paid something.

    While you are at it, figure out what this policy will do to the ratio of SFH to multifamily units, whether we are bettter of with green roofs or solar roofs, and what the relative incentives should be. Etc. Etc. Etc.

    Pretty soon you figure out why the market works and government doesn’t.

  7. nova_middle_man Avatar
    nova_middle_man

    The key is actual transportation costs and infrastucture costs.

    If people has to pay the true cost to commute 100 miles each way things would change

    People would live in a townhouse thats only 50 miles away

    Or people would move into a “less desireable” neighborhood. As more people moved in the neighborhood might become “more desireable”

    __________________________________

    EMR I continue to be confused by your statements I think I will have to agree to disagree but let me try one last time

    Stafford towncenter model is good.
    Its bad if people work in DC since its outside the clear edge.
    So move it to the clear edge.
    Then you say the clear edge will not have enough resources
    So then we DO need more places right? I am so confused. More people are coming they have to live somewhere.

  8. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    NoVa Middle Man:

    We do need some more “places” but those “places” need to be Balanced “places.”

    The important thing is that those “places” do not need to be scattered outside the Clear Edge but rather evolve inside the Clear Edges that already exist if we bother to look for them and are not confused by muncipal borders.

    EMR

  9. nova_middle_man Avatar
    nova_middle_man

    Aha I think I was combining two of your points too literally

    Point 1 More balanced places that are still insde the clear edge

    Point 2 the need to address the unsustainable consumerisim found in our current culture by reducing our appetite for resources

    Point 1 will help with point 2 by reducing unneeded sprawl infrasturcture, less raw materials for roads, less gas via shorter/eliminated trips etc.

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “So, put a tax on mercury emissions, and use the money to lower the price of solar roofs. Make sure the power company gets some of the action from all the electricity developed (since they helped pay through it through taxes anyway). Set it up so it is a win-win situation and everybody gets paid something.”

    this is exactly what is happening with nutrient reduction.

    Sewage treatment plants are being upgraded to remove more nutrients and water/sewer rates are going up to pay for it.

    Your suggestion with regard to putting a tax on pollution and using the proceeds in promoting less polluting technologies is exactly what a rather large panel of economists suggested in the Wall Street Journal last week.

  11. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I have similiar issues to NMR with regard to balanced communities.

    For instance, where do Regional Malls go in this context?

    You cannot have a super Target embedded in each “pod” no more than each “pod” could have a company that installs windows ONLY for that “pod”.

    Our economy puts out of business – any business that has more employees and building than it can pay for by it’s sales.

    So – it encourages building .. say a GIANT food … NOT for “pods” but for .. essentially many “pods”.

    Take a REGIONAL Medical Center with highly specialized services.

    It’s very name REGIONAL tells one something about why it does not have “field offices” located at each POD.

    There are two aspects:

    1. – where do all the folks who work at the Regional hospital LIVE?

    do they live in adjacent PODS?

    2. – if you draw a large circle around the Regional Hospital to depict the people it will serve – won’t that circle encompass hundreds of pods and even extend beyond the clear edge – for ordinary rural folks .. perhaps 4th, 5th, 6th generation – not “come here” commuters.

    Finally.. what do you do.. with that Regional Hospital get’s replaced with a new one… built 20 miles away or a second allied regional hospital gets built 30 miles away?

    I’m sure there is an answer.. I’m just not smart enough to figure this out on my own.

  12. Reid Greenmun Avatar
    Reid Greenmun

    This discussion serves to make the point that it is all about JOBS.

    The notion that everyone can have a JOB that pays what they seek and offers them employment doing whatever it is that they do – is flawed for a significant segment of our workforce.

    Further, is the “solution” one that is designed to force eveyone to move everytime they lose their job?

    What about the spouse that is working too?

    Now where does the family move when one of the spouses loses their job they moved next to – so they could walk or ride a bike to work?

    Obviously we need to rethink the expenses of buying and selling homes. Real Estate commissions are far too high – as our closing costs and mortgage fees – to keep buying and selling houses eveytime we are forced to change jobs.

    I’m sure the Real Estate lobby will have no problem with this – and the mortgage industry will reduce their fees accordingly.

    Hum, but then what happens to the the whole idea of “sustainable communities whereby families become invested in their communities and build long term relationships?

    Hint: Once called putting down roots.

    So now people are forced to move when they lose their job?

    Gee, I can’t see THAT “reality” being abused my employers – can you?

    You know, the government policy that punishes anyone that can’t walk to work by changing them HUGE “commuter fees” because a better job is outside the “pod”??!

    Wow – that old “take this job and shove it” sure gets a whole lot harder to do, doesn’t it?

    Because – under the new emerging “fee for commuting” concept – people cannot AFFORD to take a JOB outside of their pod!

    What was that song about the Erie Canal? – Tell Saint Peter I’m not com’in ‘cuz I cannn’t go – I owe my soul to the Company Sto (Store) . . .

  13. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I’m glad the economists from the Wall Street Journal have finally caught up to what I was taught in Environmental Economics in Grad School 20 years ago.

    I think Larry has hit on an important point with respect to megastructures: regional hospitals and malls, superstores, specialty item emporiums, etc.

    I buy specialty stainless steel hardware from a place near Annapolis becaus I know I can go there and find not only what I thought I wanted, but an expert who can provide a better solution. It is worth the hundred mile trip because I know they will have what I need. Or, I can scrounge around a dozen other places for just as much mileage and finally find something that I can make do.

    So, what is the clear edge, especially when the areas inside the clear edge expand to the point where they merge. Where does Springfield end, and Annandale begin, nowadays?

    I think that you have the walkable/ bikeable community, the short hop community, and the long haul community. For me, the walkable/bikeable community is (maybe) the farm and my two closest neighbors. The short hop community is Marhall. The long haul community is Warrenton, Winchester, and Front Royal where I can get most major services not available in Marshall. It also includes the marina where I keep the boat, my job, my family, the beach, ski resort, airport, any anyplace my job sends me. I don’t use regional malls.

    You might add a fourth special subset for those few conditions where it works, which is the transit community.

    Ideally, we would have daily activities and needs met in the shortest distance, preferably within walking distance. For me, the only things within walking distance are what I make or build.

    Walking distance is 2000 feet, less if you are carrying anything. With 100 foot frontage, that’s 20 buildings in any direction.

    A short hop is five miles. With 100 fot of frontage that’s 250 buildings, in any dierection.

    Even that isn’t enought to support the megastructures. They may be spaced on 25 mile centers, or more.

    So, draw a five mile circle around your house and count up the services and establishments you frequent. If ninety perecent or more of them are in that five mile radius, then you live in a balanced areas. I suspect that covers most of us, suburban and even rural, like me.

    If the other 10% are in the long haul area, then there you have it: a certain minimum amount of travel is probably necessary for most of us.

    But here is where it breaks down. Just because 90% of what I need is within five miles doesn’t mean that I will choose to patronize those places. I might prefer private schools to public, etc. etc. Therefore, if we shrink the five mile circle to three, it isn’t clear to me that we save any driving, or not that much. And we have the same people trying to drive in a smaller space. Even Marshall has a rush hour.

    So, you shrink the five mile pod to three and you add either, two more miles outside the clear edge, or you have room for more pods closer together. But now you have more, relatively nearby choices of destinations and more competition, so you are as likely to drive to the next pod for Italian as to stay in your own pod for Korean.

    All I know is that I have lived in different kinds of communities, and I can’t see from from my driving history that one has led to less driving than another. Maybe it is a personal thing, I don’t know. When I lived on Martha’s Vineyard, it was common to drive the thirty miles to Aquinnah, just to watch the sunset. It was the only thirty mile drive on the island.

    But, I don’t buy the argument that changing how we locate is going to mean all that much less driving. But I do agree tht it could lead to a lot less congestion, which is a different problem altogether. Rush hour in Mashall is probably a rush fifteen minutes. It is a whole different proposition than 250,000 people trying to converge on Tysons through one beltway exit, route 7, and route 123.

    Even Marshall has more ingress and egress than that.

    So, more balance, yes. More places, yes. Bigger places, maybe, but be careful, that is a hugely expensive experiment to fail at, and we don’t have very many really excellent examples.

  14. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Reid Greenum has a point. I have moved several times, only to have the job move away from me. Also, job security seems to be more and more a thing of the past, even as job availability increases.

    Moving can easily be a fifteen or twenty thousand dollar event, and you have to uproot the kids and everything else. You can drive a long ways at that price.

    You can buy a fifty thouand dollar car and be off the lot in an hour: try that with a house, at ten times the price.

    I’m all for balance, but I think it is easier to balance by moving the jobs than the homes. If we can have a major new policy to create huge fees for commutting, if we can re-jigger the planning and zoning process to benefit some at the expense of many, then why shouldn’t we at least consider what we could do about jobs locations for the same amount of money and effort? Yet, the usual response here is that “Well, we just can’t order jobs around.”

    So is that it? Citizens, no; jobs, yes?

  15. nova_middle_man Avatar
    nova_middle_man

    IMHO It is almost entirely about jobs

    The people that live in Fredricksburg can and do 90% of the stuff in their clear edge

    Just like the people in Ashburn
    or Manassas or Leesburg

    The concept falls apart for 3 main reasons which are all related

    1. The federal government and associated contractors have too many jobs at or inside the beltway

    2. Too many people have to squeeze together to get at or inside the beltway which is the “transportation crisis” or in reality a rush hour congestion crisis IMHO.

    3a. There aren’t enough jobs in
    Fredrickburg, Ashburn, Lessburg, Manassas areas

    3b. A new idea from me there aren’t enough jobs that pay enough money to support the lifestyle desired by the residents in these areas. As one of you basically said its worth it for me to drive 50 miles for a bigger paycheck then to work where I live for a smaller one.

    ___________________________________

    The solutions just copying Ray here

    So, more balance, yes. More places, yes. Bigger places, maybe, but be careful, that is a hugely expensive experiment to fail at, and we don’t have very many really excellent examples.

    and copying EMR

    We do need some more “places” but those “places” need to be Balanced “places.”

    The important thing is that those “places” do not need to be scattered outside the Clear Edge but rather evolve inside the Clear Edges that already exist if we bother to look for them and are not confused by muncipal borders.

    Before I rip a hole in this I think this is what we have all been saying the last 6 months or so

    I still see a huge problem and that is cost. In Fairfax county there is urban, suburban, and rural. So why do people still live farther out?

    because they can’t afford the type of housing they want even though its available in Fairfax its outside their price range.

    So the solution apply the real costs to living in Manassas or Fredrickburg and commuting to Tysons Corner.

    But wait these people couldn’t live in Fairfax County to begin with so now they can’t live anywhere

    The only solution I see… Sorry thats life buy a condo or a starter home like a townhouse in Fairfax and work your way up. You will then have a choice buy a home in Fairfax or buy a home farther out and pay the transportation costs.

    The other issues can also be worked out like less regulation and zoning requirements for Jim Bacon
    __________________________________
    Ray

    “But, I don’t buy the argument that changing how we locate is going to mean all that much less driving. But I do agree tht it could lead to a lot less congestion.”

    90% of our trips are within 5 miles the 10% trips will still exist. However, the commute to work will hopefully improve. As more places are created where the jobs are and more jobs are brought to the existing places.

    So, I would actually argue the opposite. Less driving but it doesn’t really fix congestion.

    If you stacked 250,000 houses within the clear edge of Tysons Corner there would be alot less driving and hopefully some people could walk but the congestion there (and not just during work commutes but on the weekends too) would be insane I avoid going to Tysons Mall during Christmas because of this exact situation. Year Round it would drive you insane nobody would want to live there. The solution is less cars in this example but it brings up the same issue Larry talked about with Regionl facilities and how to hanle the traffic and massive amounts of people associated with it.

    So ideally each pod has 10,000 or was it 100,000 people.

    Of course the gorilla in the room is the lack of movement by the feds and contractors from the DC area.

    I will end on hope there is change. Crystal City is being moved to Fort Belvoir, Dulles and the Route 28 corridors are generating jobs closer to where people are. Telecommuting flex times are also coming on board

    Now if only we could move the Pentagon to Fredrickburg :-p

  16. Reid Greenmun Avatar
    Reid Greenmun

    Moving the Pentagon to Federicksburg is actually a great idea!

    That idea is a real, workable solution that would have a true positive impact on reducing traffric congestion in NORVA and adding much needed high paying jobs closer to where a lot of qualified workers that can perform those jobs now live.

    However – where will all the people that used to work at the Pentagon find employment?

    If there aren’t jobs to replace the jobs that left the D.C. area then will people have to move away from the D.C. area and follow their jobs?

    Will property values will fall as a result, or is the D.C. job market sufficent to absorb a mass exodus of defense contractors?

    Perhaps there are still plenty of jobs remaining to absorb the jobs that were relocated to Fredricksburg?

    I am not sure, someone from NORVA would have to answer that for me.

    But, for all those the people that now work in the Pentagon who already live in the Fredricksburg area, this would be a HUGE “win”.

    Still, I wonder, would the surrounding defense contractor firms with their offices now located near the Pentagon relocate their offices to be near the relocated Pentagon – or would they seek other customers in D.C. and simply stay put?

    Just like moving our homes is a huge hassel and expense, moving a corporate headquarters is too. The management might simply elect to stay, because their existing relationships and contracts can be managed from D.C., even if their prime customer is elsewhere.

    The answer to this relocation question would be based on how much the employees would be adversely impacted from being forced to sell their homes and the cost of relocation they would bear.

    My experience in these types of situations is that often at least 30% of the workforce remains where they are. This can cause a huge disruption and significant loss of key personnel to any defense firm.

    In the case of my own employer – we own a large office building in Alexandria; it is our Corporate Headquarters. I wonder if we would sell and move, or if our senior corporate officers would choose to remain where they are now – because they have set down roots in Alexandria and the surrounding cities?

    It is a very interesting question, what would really happen if the government began moving around large office complexes into many different placed (i.e “pods”)?

  17. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Good Discussion.

    RE: jobs and pods

    Background – News Item: “…the Army has announced that it may split its new anti-terrorist Asymmetric Warfare Group, sending 300 jobs to Maryland and consigning to A.P. Hill [near Fredericksburg] only the billetless role of training ground. Why? Because there’s too little development around the fort.”

    …. ” The Army contends that the area near The Hill lacks sufficient housing, medical services, employment for spouses, and schools to permit moving the Asymmetric Warfare jobs there.”

    If we can’t get 300 jobs from the Army to Fredericksburg… from the Pentagon……

    Important Points:

    What is behind the Army’s thinking with respect to this?

    Is this not untypical of other businesses that end up locating in NoVa rather than Fredericksburg?

    Finally – with respect to PODS – there seems to be a built-in premise that entities with JOBS are permanent and ideal as the anchors for PODs…

    What happens when a major sources of jobs for a given POD goes belly up… or is moved by corporate for any number of reasons that corporates move/close businesses with jobs.

    What happens to an “orphan” pod?

    What happens when the Asymmetric Warfare jobs – the 300… get moved to .. some other agency… say near Fort Bragg in Fayettville, NC.

    I think the concept of any job-supplying enterprising…(be it government or non-govt) staying in one location and thus an “anchor” for a POD is … flawed.

    This USED to be the case in many traditional urban environments.

    When FORD build a huge manufacturing plant – for all practical purposes it was if not forever.. would actually span generations of families.

    We all know that global commerce has forever changed this equation.

    and I’ll throw out a provocative thought… is this concept of PODs based on a concept that has been OBE (overcome by events)?

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    When I ask – in essence – how permanent PODs are … the implicit question is also – are PODs sustainable in an age where job centers themselves are not permanent.

    In Fredericksburg – we had a perfect example.

    Capital One came to town and built 2 multi-story office buildings and a mini-boom ensued for housing and businesses that provide goods and services… arrayed around these towers.

    People who worked there ..could actually choose to buy housing close to the new Cap One Buildings and shop at Food Lion and pick up a pizza only a few hundred feet from where they worked.

    Then CapOne – without almost no warning – changed their business model and within a year they were gone.

    Some businesses replaced Cap One but the workers commuted from other places.

    One building sat vacant for more than 2 years until the county itself decided to lease it while they were in the process of adding more office space at their own Courthouse “POD”.

    So – now – we clearly have a vision ahead of us where this POD will become, “reuseable” for some other business(es) than a single Cap One business.

    I don’t think kind of circumstance is unique. I think instead this kind of dynamic is not uncommon and can and is affected in major ways by economic and market influences.

    We have right now – in rural Virginia .. very traditional town PODS whose fortunes went from vibrant to morose when their “pods” furniture or textile plant went overseas.

    No we have “pods” inhabited by people who must drive 50-100 miles to a job somewhere else – or if that is not possible – take a local job at 1/2 to 1/3 their original salary.

    On the flip side – it IS clear that once an urban area “exists” that the normal evolution IS that businesses will come and go and will occupy existant buildings and the adjacent pods… but the work/live relationship of the people who live in the pod ..will change… and it is undeniable that if a person with “x” skills can find a new job to replace the one that went away – even if it requires a substantail commute – will, in fact, do that commute.

    As supportive as I am for “smart(er)” ways to grow and development – I think that for those strategies to be successful (sustainable) – they cannot ignore the changing dynamics of jobs.

    NoVa not only “grows” new jobs but other jobs go away.. or are moved … seemly almost by whimsy for those who might not appreciate what is known today as Nimble and Adaptable and QUICK Business Models.

    A company that is going great guns with a new type of cell phone – in two years is either OBE or gobbled up by some other company who does not need redundant administrative staff nor facilities to house that staff.

  19. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    The missing ingredient here is that if the majority of citizens understood the importance and dynamcis of human settlement patterns then the decisions they made as individuals, families, small business owners, big business managers and governance practitioners would, over time tend to avoid the Capital One-like problems.

    When the locational variable cost were fairly allocated that will be a big step. Employers would not just move, knowing that employees had not just personal and social roots but also financial roots.

    Think of it as learning about human health. There is still a ways to go and there is still some self-defeating health practices by individuals but consider what citizens would look like if the conventional wisdom backed up by billions of $ in ads and no input from sicence was that five meals a day of twinkies use healthy. That is what we have in human settlement patterns.

    Hopefully, the new graphics in TRILO-G will help with the “Regional Mall” issue. Actually it is a “Communtiy Mall” in most cases.

    I hate to say it but most of the apparent problems with Balanced Communities are rooted in Geographic Illiteracy.

    Only about 10 % of the urbanized area is needed for non-residential urban land uses. Between 5 % and 10% of the land in any New Urban Region is needed for all urban land uses.

    Compact, fuctunctional distribution of urban land uses results im more options, not fewer options.

    Unless we fairly allocate location variable costs, the decisions will continue to be made in a way that cumulatively results in dysfunction.

    EMR

  20. nova_middle_man Avatar
    nova_middle_man

    Good article about the tug-of war about what to do in Tysons.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701330.html

    “Winning local support was achieved, officials said, only after countless meetings and pledges that Arlington would stick to a “bull’s-eye” approach, limiting the tallest buildings to a quarter-mile radius from rail stations and not encroaching on neighborhoods. To keep up support over time, the county instituted parking limits and traffic-calming methods on nearby streets.

    Employees and residents in the corridor are encouraged to stay out of their cars through parking limits, transit subsidies, a county bus system, bike paths and pedestrian-friendly street designs. The county has the advantage of having control over the design of its secondary streets, an authority that in most Virginia counties is held by the state.

    “It’s not just one policy but a whole series of things,” said Dennis Leach, the county’s transportation chief. “This is not something you do overnight. Arlington’s been at this 30 years, and not everything’s perfect. We have a lot more to do.”

    ___________________________________

    Reid

    NoVA is slated to provide tons more jobs so moving a couple wont hurt the region

    From 2005-2010 its estimated jobs will increase at the rate of 64,000 per year

    Here are the predictions

    http://www.mwcog.org/publications/departmental.asp?CLASSIFICATION_ID=6&SUBCLASSIFICATION_ID=27

    This provides a good snapshot of what has happened recently

    http://www.mwcog.org/store/item.asp?PUBLICATION_ID=105

    ___________________________________

    At least in the Crystal City to Fort Belvoir move many companies are moving out (they didn’t own they were renting which helps).

    So Crystal City has lost its employment Pod. The good news is its on a metro and like Larry said since its a mature area other companies will propably take the office space. Property values might drop in the interim but thats a healthy part of the economic cycle. Unless of course you happen to own the office buldings, or work in the many resturants that people go to for lunch.

    ___________________________________

    Efforts to create more places

    http://www.ecorridors.vt.edu/news/topic/?article_id=221&cat_type=topic&cat_id=51

    http://www.returntoroots.org/

    These program appear to be good by providing more places

    However, I am generally for limited government. Which raises this question, what should be the governments roll in trying to influence where jobs are located. Back to the free market vs greater good argument. How does government determine the “greater good”

  21. Darrell -- Chesapeake Avatar
    Darrell — Chesapeake

    Jamestown was a pod. How did that work out?

    “Employers would not just move, knowing that employees had not just personal and social roots but also financial roots.”

    Yep, that worked real well with the Ford plant down here. All the awards for best pickup truck plant don’t mean nothing. Employers don’t give a crap about employees. They are merely tools to accomplish the job. When the tools wear out or are no longer needed, poof!

    Ever hear of the Hillbilly Highway? Every June generations of newly graduating classes headed north looking for something other than chemical plants and coal mines. They built the empires in Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo. And when they were done, they lived out the rest of their lives in the splendor of a crappy apartment, eating cat food.

  22. Jim Wamsley Avatar
    Jim Wamsley

    “Three-fourths of trips under one mile are made by car and it’s these trips that clog all the roads,” said Ted Smart of Maryland Development Company. “Small neighborhood centers can keep people off arterial roads.”

    A little quick review of basics. The alpha community is an area that has a range of economic, social and physical attributes necessary to support a range of jobs, housing, services, recreation and amenity “balance” at its full potential. It is a “village” and neighborhoods.

    The easiest way of thinking about “balance” is the 3 mile average range for services and the five mile average range for jobs.

    The next thing we need is a quick and dirty way of looking at community locations.

    Start small. Looks at your map for “villages” surrounded by forests and fields.
    A village will have a gas station, restaurant, grocery, grade school and a general store. The grade school is probably the easiest screen.

    Next go the interstates and look for interchanges and look for villages. Then look for “villages” surrounding them in a 30 mile radius from the interchange. A village will have a gas station, restaurant, grocery, grade school and a general store, if it doesn’t it’s a neighborhood.

    Last look for alpha communities, villages with a range of jobs in a five mile radius.

    Now we can evaluate development. How far is it from the closest village? If it is a subdivision, are jobs and services within a 5 and 3 mile radius? If it is an employment center are workers within a 5 mile radius? If it is a local mall, are residents within a 3 mile radius?

    These are quick and dirty ways to evaluate basic development.

    We can move on to regional activities. A question was asked about hospitals. Start with the location and plans for existing hospitals. For the geometry majors, draw a line to each bisect each line with a vertical line to form a boundary for the new hospitals service area. How many patients are needed to support the hospital? Does the population match?

    You can use the same technique for all the area activities, high schools, ball parks, regional malls like Potomac Mills.

    Applying these basics. Does the zoning match? Does the highway plan match? Does the school investment plan match? At the moment, the highway plan spends too much money in areas outside the alpha communities and not enough inside them. Zoning locates housing in the wrong spot. Changes are needed.

    Last, don’t get lost by those who forget the 10x rule. Remember that we are not talking about the unusual situation. We are talking about new taxpayer investment. If someone wants to pay the above average costs for their dream, we will not prevent them. We also will not subsidize them.

  23. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Just a note on Vocabulary:

    How big is a “pod”? I know what Jim Bacon meant when he first used it at Bacons Rebellion.

    I know what New Urbanists (of which I am not one) meant when they used the term pod.

    I do not know how big a neighborhood is, I do know how big an Alpha Neighborhood is.

    How big is a community? I have no idea but I know the size and function of an Alpha Community.

    An Alpha Village fits well into the first level of reletive balance in Jim W’s scheem but I have no idea if a pod does.

    Is a pod as big as a breadbox or a subregion?

    See why we need a robust, consistant and scaleable Vocabulary?

    EMR

  24. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    A “pod” is in my mind a generic designation that refers to a functional unit (built environment) superimposed over a natural geographic area – and connected by “mobilitly links”.

    PODS themselves can be a variety of critters ranging from employment centers, to subdivisions, villiages, and even Alphia PODS (the most optimized).

    But my point is the same.

    Employement PODS or whatever we wish to call them – are not static.

    The change shape… they grow bigger, smaller, disappear, appear and morph from one form to another.

    A Regional Mall can become Flex buildings …. A 4-story building for an insurance company can become shared housing for multiple reality and mortgage companies and/or a pseudo-govt College Loan agency… etc.

    A Denist office can become an Army Corps of Engineers field office or vice-versa.

    And all of these can and do have distinct and different traffic generation characteristics.

    A traditional home can generate 10 auto trips a day while a regional mall might generate so many trips per square foot or some such but if it gets converted to Flex offices – the traffic generation can change dramatically.

    This IS the 600 lb gorilla with the movement of major Army/Navy agencies in the Wash DC area.

    Did we build Metro and the highways to support however development might morph or did we build the infrastructure to support jobs located in specific areas that would not be there forever and when they moved.. all hell would brake lose on the infrastrucuture that no longer “fit” the new paradigm?

    just some thoughts…

    If the answer to the above is that we simply cannot afford to let jobs move at will – anywhere they want – then you’ve moved to the government dictate .. planning.. zoning… etc…

    I’m not saying this is bad or good – only for folks to recognize that this is actually what we advocate (or not).

    etc, etc, etc.

  25. nova_middle_man Avatar
    nova_middle_man

    Did we build Metro and the highways to support however development might morph or did we build the infrastructure to support jobs located in specific areas that would not be there forever and when they moved.. all hell would brake lose on the infrastrucuture that no longer “fit” the new paradigm?

    It is my understanding metro was orginally bulit to get fed employees to work. That is why the feds paid for most of it. (Somebody older and wiser doublecheck that) This has changed somewhat but I think the stats show the fed workers are still a large chunk of the metro riders. Finally, this is why there are growing pain issues Metro was never built to expand out to Dulles through Tysons.

    It is also my understanding that is also why Tysons Corner was put where it is. Somebody said look here is 123 7 and the Beltway looks like a great place to develop.

  26. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I worked for much of my career at a “place” called Dahlgren.

    A Navy lab that started as a proving ground for projectiles shot 20 miles downriver because the rest of the shells were sent to be used in Navy ships on patrol.

    It was a great “place” for local residents… they had LOTs of manual labor work….

    Then it added engineering and scientific work and they had to recruit from outside the area.

    The question on every new employees mind – including mine – was should I build a home CLOSE to the base – and risk having to some day sell it for pennies on the dollar if the work at Dahlgren went away .. or should I get a house in Fredericksburg – 30 miles distant as a “hedge”?

    It would seem like every year -some kind of ‘Brac-like’ threat would come to the fore… rumours that the work would go to China Lake in California or some Admiral or Congressman wanting the work moved to their district…

    The threats were real – not imagined – as anyone familiar with BRAC can tell you.. especially Reid and Darrel in VaBeach.. and the folks in Jacksonville Florida that lost their Master Air Base.

    I spent my entire youth as a Military “brat” and the discussion of Alpha Communities brings back memories because if you ever were in that situation – You’ll know that when there used to be base housing… there was a base grocery, pharmacy/doctor (dispensary), bowling alleys, ball fields, movie theaters and even schools.

    Literally – self contained – Alphia Communities and walking and biking easy… even for the soldiers going to “work”.

    These bases – “Master Planned” with grid streets and roads and separate PODs for military functions and non-military functions.

    Now some folks would say that this is not relevant because private industry does not work this way but I would point out.. that your tax dollars and mine are what build those master planned housing facilities on Military Bases right now.

    And something a little ironic.. talking about Karl Marx… and his ideas about workers… a places to live – based on their positions in the workforce.. the higher the position to better the housing that was assigned.

    Take a look at a Military base and look what kind of house the Sargeant was allocated verses his Boss.. and his bosses’ boss…

    an almost exact replication of good ole Karl’s ideas.

  27. Reid Greenmun Avatar
    Reid Greenmun

    The solution for sustainable human settlement patterns: Nomadic Pod People.

    Larry – that is a TERRIFIC analogy! Perfect – Military pods.

    Take Oceana MJB for example – a ton of taxpayer infrastructure – a HUGE, modern commissary – gold courses and JOBS mostly within walking or biking distance – if farther, an on base self-contained transit system is provided – it is designed to serve a set schedule – set number of “workers” – all going to set places of employment. You see, military pods “work” because government controls the means of production.

    The Military “pod” has base housing and the all manner of “amenities” are dolled out based on “rank”.

    Military pods (bases) have nightlife (bars, dance clubs, and movie theaters) – all self-contained. There are even commercial restaurants on base – yup, the perfect “pods”.

    They even burn their own garbage and make steam that is recycled into heat.

    The taxpayers spend a fortune to build these “pods”.

    Then PooF! – Oceana is BRACed after 50 years – and the whole house of cards collapses. The expensive pod turns into an empty ghost town.

    The JOBS went away.

    The surrounding “pods” outside of the base and they related service sector economy also suffers – and, as the “government payroll” leaves and the JOBS are relocated elsewhere, non-pod retail stores lay off some percentage of their workforce – thus, there are now less non-military customers having money to spend in nearby restaurants – not from within the Pod per se – – and the snow ball effect radiates our from the pod that reason for existence disappeared – JOBS.

    The entire argument for “New Urbanism” as a solution for reducing traffic congestion is founded on the notion that commuting will be reduced because enough JOBS are within “walking distance” or “biking distance” – or some high density localized mass transit system.

    Pods can work well for retired people. But what about family that need JOBS to survive?

    Unless the New Urbanists” planners can control the “proper diversity” and explicit location of adequate JOBS juxtaposed to the appropriately skilled workforce housing – the pod is not really “sustainable”, now is it?

    So, what are we left with?

    Either Communism or ….
    The John Steinbeck world of the new The Grapes Of Wrath of course. Obviously we need to give up on the outdated practice buying fixed housing and we must migrate to MOBIL HOUSING.

    Yupper – MOBIL PODS – there’s the future according to the pod advocates – yupper, “new” thinking for a brave new “sustainable” world. “Dynamic pods” to follow around “dynamic” JOBS.

    “Homes” (okay – “housing”) that we can easily (and inexpensively) relocate. The same for business structures too.

    Owning “land” becomes a thing of the past for the masses – replaced with “trailer park pods farms” that allow the masses to follow JOBS around and “Pod places” that can be easily reconfigured.

    We don’t buy land and fixed structures anymore, we rent space with the proper utility hook ups so that we can relocate right next to a ready source of a JOB we can perform.

    Without adopting Karl Marx’s strategy for the state controlling the means of production – we are doomed to total traffic gridlock – or doomed to abandoning “inefficient human settlement patterns” as we now know them – that being a fixed structure built of a piece of “property” we buy. Gosh – and following with a logo blocks modular design concept, our mobile home of the future can be easily adapted to expand – or contract, based on the housing “needs”. Once the kids leave “home”, we sell off the extra two modular bedroom “plug ins” to the main “core” mobile housing unit. Presto! The ultimate in efficiency and adaptability!

  28. Darrell -- Chesapeake Avatar
    Darrell — Chesapeake

    As far as military bases go, what you guys are describing no longer exists. The military pays their troops to live in town, and have gotten out of the base housing business. Consequently, many on base amenities are suffering.

    As far as Brac is concerned, it is a minor earthquake compared to the restructuring plans being discussed. The entire human resources component is under review to enhance deployability. There has been a shift from a long standing Eurocentric strategy to worldwide availability. The focus now is on the Pacific, with Guam becoming the first line of defense. I wouldn’t be surprised to see many of the Norfolk battle groups relocated to meet these new contingencies.

    Should that occur, the federal largess that this area has enjoyed could be drastically cut. And as anyone who lives here knows, when the fleet is gone the congestion disappears, along with the economic stimulation the military provides.

  29. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “As far as military bases go, what you guys are describing no longer exists. The military pays their troops to live in town, and have gotten out of the base housing business.”

    Have you been on a military base recently? How about one that is in a remote area of this country or overseas?

    In well-settled areas, the military provides less of such services but many are still provided and for ones that are not “allowances” are provided based on rank and the cost of those services locally.

    In your own area – there are more than two dozen instances of base housing.

    http://www.nsa norva.navy.mil/housing/

    Many of these things are classified as Morale, Welfare and Recreation and a GOOGLE search will turn them up.

    Here’s one for HR:

    http://www.nsa-norva.navy.mil/MWR/index.htm

    The point is that we DO have a MODEL for self-contained PODs.

    And the second point is that these PODS are not permanent whether they be military or non-military.

    The physical/geographic attributes of job centers is not static but changes due to the economy, and/or decisions made by companies.

    The housing market AND people – Respond/react to the changing employment dynamics associated with any region.

    The military has quite a bit of control over WHERE they put jobs and one of the major considerations is the cost of the infrastructure and services for those with families who staff those jobs.

    But the military, has a business model, and that model while different from private industry has the same impacts – it can:

    1. -leave a region
    2. – move within a region
    3. – go to a new region
    4. -upsize/downsize within a region

    Numbers 1 thru 4 mean JOBS.

    Private industry can be thought of as dozens, hundreds of military-like entities that also do 1 thru 4.

    So – if one can figure out how a region – with alpha communities would/should react to a substantial business – like the military .. coming into a region or leaving it.. or changing within that region – then .. my view..

    that model that works well in reacting to the military might well also be a model that would work well in general to how job markets fluctuate regionally.

    If I’m off to a different planet here – please so advise me.

    I surely would not want to engage in blather and twaddle in this blog.

    🙂

  30. Darrell -- Chesapeake Avatar
    Darrell — Chesapeake

    Larry, every thing you stated is correct. Except the part about military housing. The DoD has for for last couple of years been privatizing traditional military housing. The existing housing is being torn down and either replaced by a contracted developer or relocated to other suitable areas.

    Under the rules, the developer is required to rent these units to junior enlisted first, followed by a priority list that could include retired military, contractors, civil service and the general public depending on availability. The fact that existing housing is still available merely means that the assumption of responsibility hasn’t occurred yet.

    And yes, you could say I visit military bases regularly, both stateside and overseas.

    Back to the real topic…

  31. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    That new military housing (and neighborhood / village scale services) are being called “New Urbanism.”

    That is somewhat unfair since this has been advocated for 30 years by Patrick Kane in his roll as a consultant and trainer for military housing programs. It was Patrick’s idea long before New Urbanism was coined.

    EMR

  32. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    Until you assign a scale and a function to each different “Pod” there is no way to understand what you are trying to say.

    Jim Bacons Pod in a subidision designed and delivered as a single entity with internal vehicular circulation and only one (or very limited) access points to the Neighborhood-wide, Villiage-wide or Community-wide circulation system.

    His pod can be of Dooryard, Cluster of Neighborhood scale but is limited to one use — residential.

    New Urbanist’s pods are similar but can be housing of various types, services (e.g. retail or governace — schools) and also vary in size.

    Scale, use and mix all have to be clear for a designation of human settlement pattern to be useful.

    You can use ours or invent on of your own but if the latter, you need to carefully define the terms with scale, use and mix.

    EMR

  33. nova_middle_man Avatar
    nova_middle_man

    Aha am I correct in reading there are no industrial pods.

    That’s the problem

    Talk in caveman just to make the same old argument a little more interesting

    Me have house need job need job close to house

    or

    Me have job need house need house close to job

    Job keep changing cost lots of dough to keep moving house family no like either

    __________________________________-

    Larry good luck with your theory I don’t know if one exists. Off the top of my head I can think of the important role to diversify your economy. So, if one sector or cooperation goes away the whole pod/area isn’t effected.

    It seems much of government is reactive rather than proactive.

    It might be interesting to you to follow the efforts Fairfax County is doing to prepare for the influx of people into Fort Belvior and Arlington is doing for the outflux of people from Crystal City

    Google it here are two links to get started

    http://www.washtimes.com/fhg/20060524-090024-3935r.htm

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061502078.html

  34. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “The solution for sustainable human settlement patterns: Nomadic Pod People.”

    Sure enough. If and when all the dire predictions about unsustainable settlement patterns come true, then what is left will likely be nomadic. We are so far from being truly sustainable, that is likely to happen sooner rather than later. Whether it is a relatively civilized nomadic existence or one more like that pictured in Mad Max is yet to be seen.

    Watching what is happening in Baghdad, the cradle of civilization, isn’t very re-assuring.

  35. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Okay…I’ve not got the nomenclature … and perhaps the use of a strict vocabalary is paramount in discussing “pods”…

    … heck.. I just dunno…

    However, I think the point that the job “landscape” is ever changing and not static.

    That would seem to say that alpha communities – that are, in part, defined by the type, size, scope, of jobs… themselves cannot be static creatures either – if they are going to function as advertised on a sustainable basis.

    In other words – the relationship between a given alpha community and the jobs associated with it – are not permanent but ever changing.

    A person living in an Alpha community walking to a Capital One job .. next year .. will be auto commuting to some other job some other place after Cap One goes belly up.

    Times x 2 – both husband and wife both have Cap One Jobs and POOF.. next year they both go seeking new employment.

    Do they go from business to business looking for a 2 fer deal then once they find it.. move from alpha community one to alpha community two and stay then as long as their jobs don’t go away?

    Why not just put tolls on the roads and let folks pay for their locational decisions and be done?

    First, I’ve have to be educated on exactly how Alpha communities themselves might adapt to an ever changing job environment…

    Then I’d have to be convinced that this would happen on a market basis and not a government dictate basis.

    .. or perhaps I lack the intellectual horsepower to grasp the concept in the first place.

    .. My only defense.. if this happens to be the case – is that I suspect there’s a bunch of us… and I won’t feel both alone and dumb.

    🙂

  36. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    No Va Middleman and Larry:

    “There are no “industrial” pods?”

    There is no way to answer that because I do not know what you mean by “pod.”

    Let us take the most simple case:

    A medium sized (1,000,000 pop) New Urban Region with a deep water port and an inter-regional airport.

    In every Alpha Community within the Clear Edge there would be commicail (retail, office, service) elements in the Cores of most Alpha Neighborhoods, in the Cores of all Alpha Villages and in the Alpha Community Core.

    Depending on the role of the Community in creating balance in the Core of the New Urban Region, there may be one or more Dooryard, Cluster, or Neighborhood scale areas devoted “industrial” (warehouse, fabrication and manufacturing — you have to define what “industrial” means) near or adjacent to Village Cores or the Community Core.

    It is also clear that some of what is now relegated to “industrial” areas may be located in “non-traditonal” locations dependng on the actual impact of the use. For example, I fabricate graphic packages in my studio that in some zoning codes must be done in an “industial zone 3.”

    The Regional Core, The Deep Water Port, the autonomobile dealer park (so long as there is a need), the big box complex (so long as Wal*Mart et. al. are willing to pay the full cost of attracting buyers over long distances to save a few pennies on Pampers) and other multi-community and regional serving uses will have their own neighborhood or village-scale (and community-scale in the case of the New Urban Region Core) environs suited to that use. (New Urbanist call these “districts.” I find the term less than clear.)

    Recall that in a typical New Urban Region less than 20 % of the jobs (and in some regions far less) are not best suited to Cores at the Neighborhood, Village, Community and the Regioanl Core.

    Some uses — the airport and the sewerage treatment plant, and perhaps others — will be located outside the Clear Edge. Because of historical agglomeration of land uses, it is unlikely that the port will be outside the Clear Edge. Go to Gottenburg to see how a world class port can be part of the Regional Core. They have a world class light rail system, by the way.

    Larry’s Capital One problem is addressed by three factors:

    It is located in a Core and so if it goes belly up, another use will take its place offering similar employment.

    Depending on the scale of the “Capital One, it will be within walking distance of a shared-vehicle system station. (Every New Urban Region of over a million will need such a system soon and eventually all agglomeration of over a few hundred will as the cost of mobility (energy / natural capital) continues to go up.)

    Fundamental Chage will include an end to relocation subsides that places like Fairfax County and Virgina offer to those who make of profit by shopping jobs /tax base.

    So many more details but you get the idea.

    EMR

  37. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    The relationship between a community and its jobs are not permanent, but ever changing.

    This, I think, is part of the problem with EMR’s endless search for balanced communities. Balance is a dynamic condition, not a static one. Therefore, all of our efforts to dimininish change: manage growth, conservation easements, historical districts, and zoning of many kinds is doomed to not only fail, but create unnecessary hardship on the way.

    Not that there is anything wtrong with those things, but they offer the false hope of permanence.

    Consider Nantucket. It stayed a quaint waterfront town for many years after the decline of the whaling and fishing industry. As the pressure for change eventually increased, so did the ordinances designed to prevent change, yet change still occurs within those limits.

    The result is homes with gray shingles and white trim, sure enough, but the overall effect is fake: Faux Nantucket. The gray shingles and white trim may be vinyl, not cedar. The energy efficient windows are custom made with small panes and rippled glass, at enormous expense. All at the behest and approval of the architectural review board, and who do you suppose pays their salaries?

    And it still isn’t the fishing village I knew. Likewise on Martha’s Vineyard. The home my father rented for $75 a month (greatly renovated, but still partially recognizable as its 1712 self) recently sold for $6.5 million dollars. Should it have been retained in its original 1712 “glory”, with the winter wind blowing through the bedrooms at gale force?

    Wasn’t a good part of Jane Jacob’s argument that you simply have to let cities happen? (Similar to Jim Bacon’s argument.) Compare that to the mulimillion dollar DC convention center that never lived up to its planned billings. Would that fiasco have happened without government “help”?

    Is it at least possible that the reason government costs more is because we have more government? That the government we have needs to do more, AND that what it needs to do costs more? Is it really all that different from our lives, which cost more because now we have electricity, game boys, large screen TV’s and indoor plumbing?

    Or is the sole cause of increased costs because we have dysfunctional settlement patterns, as defined by EMR?

    Who decides what jobs are “not best suited”? I can think of a dozen jobs I could do here at home and barely affect the land use, but they are all prohibited in my area. So I commute instead.

    All in the name of preventing change. I beleive it is not only crazy, but futile.

  38. nova_middle_man Avatar
    nova_middle_man

    humm

    I guess what I was saying is you can design a community and say where the house should go and where the business should go and we can talk and say where this road should go and who should pay for it etc.

    but at the end of the day people and business are all going to make their own choices about where to go and when to move and go somewhere else

    we apply the actual costs to commuting and using transportation resources and let the market take care of the rest

    _________________________________

    EMR I find your ideas fascianting and they make sense on paper. But even you have said there are no alpha communities in existant.

    More power to plopping down more Restons and Columbias everywhere.

    However, regardless everything seems to work out 🙂

    we went from a rural society to a city and then back to the burbs and then we are going back to the city again.

    we go from no growth to fast growth and back again. People have choices and the world keeps turning. People can choose to live in a planned community or live in some cul-de-sac and have to drive everywhere. The market responds to what the people want.

    So what can we do? well what this post started with remove impdiments to allowing different kinds of development patterns. Stafford would greatly benefit from a town center so let it happen. Allocate actual costs and let the people decide which development ideas are most appealing.

  39. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I’d like to share with you folks this morning’s headline in the local Fredericksburg (Stafford) Free Lance Star:

    “None of Fairfax Army jobs coming”

    “None of the 22,000 jobs proposed for Fort Belvoir in burgeoning Fairfax will be coming to this region without legislative action.”

    “The Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in December urging the Department of the Army to move any of the Fairfax jobs to this area. Studies show that much of the work force already lives here.”

    http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/022007/02202007/261276

    So .. build that Town Center in Stafford.. but the folks who live there are still headed up I-95 every morning to Fort Belvoir.

    tell me again how this Alpha Community concept “works”.

    Bonus Question: Is Stafford OUTSIDE or INSIDE the CLEAR EDGE?

    🙂

  40. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Where is the Clear Edge?

    No one individual can or should dictate where Clear Edge is but in our work to date we would say that Stafford County is outside the Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital Subregion.

    Stafford and environs are clearly in the Washington Baltimore New Urban Region.

    However, Prince William Park and Quantico Marine Base provide a natural edge to extension south in the I-95 / NE Rail Corridor.

    In addition extension south would put so much land inside the Core that it could never achieve Balance among the Communities within the Core.

    Greater Fredericksburg / Stafford / Spotsylvania needs to evolve to become its own Alpha Community with its own Clear Edge.

    The overarching problem is that there is so much territory already devoted to scattered urban development in these three jurisdictions that it will be hard to draw a Clear Edge that is not so large that the territory inside the Clear Edge can never achieve the minimum density and the functional flux of uses necessary to achieve a relative Balance of an Alpha Community outside the Core but within the New Urban Region.

    It is sad that ideas in the sketch we provided above were “fascinating.” They ought to be familiar to all citizens and should have been taught in grade school and junior high with the same level of detail as the food pyramid and healthy lifestyles, the three branches of government, multiplication tables and reading and writing English.

    The most important part of Fundamental Chage is education.

    EMR

  41. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Oh Yes, that place at Stafford Courthouse needs to be designed to evolve to become the Eastern Stafford Village Center.

    To function well in the Greater Fredericksburg / Stafford / Spotsylvania Balanced Community, each of the Villages must achieve a greater level of Balance due to the extensive area and the distance between Village Cores.

    EMR

  42. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I’m still pondering what happens when a company with jobs – changes Regions.

    The Army made a decision with regard to Fort Belvoir based on what criteria?

    It appears to me that their criteria had almost everything to do with bettering their business model – consolidation, eliminating redundancies, increasing production while reducing costs, etc.

    What they do – will also have profound impacts on workers in terms of mobility.

    For us to really appreciate this – a good question, I think, is to ask ourselves if the Army DID decide to move 20,000 jobs to the new Alpha Coummunity of Fredericksburg – what would be the IMPACTS of THAT movement?

    Are we so sure that nothing but good impacts would be the result?

    Is the answer really so simple as incentivizing and/or enough carrots and sticks to convince the Army and other employers to NOT locate in the Wash Metro MSA but instead in an Area that is not functioning as a Alpha Community because it lacks sufficient “in-pod” jobs?

    Look around… there are more than 400 MSAs in the US .. and NONE of them are Alpha Communities?

    Is that because we are looking at a disease or a natural process?

  43. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    “Is that because we are looking at a disease or a natural process?”

    Disease, including all forms of cancer, are natural processes. “Organic” does not mean benign.

    Just a few numbers off the top of my head:

    In 2000 Census listed 280 MSAs.

    There has been a scrambling of definitions and criteria since to which I have not paid much attention. That is because the changes are driven not by economic social or physical reality but by politicians not wanting to be lumped together with… E.g. Winchester is no longer in Washington Baltimore CMSA although the indicators of attachment have grown stronger every decade since 1970.

    The largest MSAs are part of the 20 CMSAs.

    The 280 MSAs have 75 percent of the population and cover 11 percent of the area of the lower 48.

    If all the “rural” area was included in these totals the population would be closer to 85 percent in MSAs (aka significant urban agglomerations).

    All the CMSA and the next 55 +/- largest MSAs are New Urban Regions. This is where TAMU measures traffic congestion, etc.

    An Alpha Community could be found inside the Clear Edge around the Core of these 75 +/- New Urban Rregion or as Disaggregated But Balanced Community (e.g. Greater Warrenton / Fauquier) in the Countryside in a New Urban Region or in an Urban Support Region. (Most of the non-New Urban Region MSAs are in Urban Support Regions.)

    There are perhaps 1,000 Beta (potential Alpha) Communities in the US of A.

    There are no Alpha Communities. That is why we call it Fundamental Change.

    As we have noted there are enough Beta Communities that are close enough to Alpha status to know what they would look like.

    As to the Army:

    As you well know they are not driven by market forces.

    We assume that if the general population strongly favored evolution of Alpha Communites then actions by both civilian and military actors would move the Army and the other servcies in the direction of contributing to Alpha Communities.

    Note the change in housing and services at places like Belvior noted by Alec MacGillis in a recent WaPo story.

    Time to get to Chicago for the game.

    EMR

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