In a recent post I opined that three things made Columbia (and by extension Howard County) the kind of place it was and (to a greater or lesser degree) still is:

  • It was a “better suburb,” relative to other suburbs.
  • It had a more socially diverse and inclusive environment, again relative to other suburbs.
  • It had a prosperous economy driven by steadily growing government spending.

No sooner had I done that post than the Columbia 2.0 blog quoted Jim Rouse on the first goal of Columbia: ““To provide a real City—not just a better suburb” [emphasis added]. It was as if Rouse himself had risen from the grave to contradict me. (And wildelakemike further reinforced the point in his comment on my post.)

Well, far be it from me to do battle with the ghost of Jim Rouse and the very much alive wildelakemike, but I will stand by my comment in response to wildelakemike:

First, Columbia’s city-like aspects, even if they’d been expanded, strike me as basically a suburban take on a city: higher density, yes, but at heart a tamed version of what an actual city would be like. . . . It’s similar I think to what Rouse’s “festival marketplaces” turned out to be, namely an urban concept reimagined to appeal to suburban sensibilities.

Second, whatever Rouse’s original intentions regarding higher-density, they were not followed through on. From my point of view this indicates that creating a “new American city” was in the end not essential to the view of Columbia as it evolved in the minds of its developers and its residents.

Whatever happens with town center redevelopment or development elsewhere in Howard County, Columbia is certainly not going to turn into a city like Baltimore. It’s not even clear that Columbia will or could become a city like Bethesda or Rockville. (Most notably, the prospects for a true mass transit system in Columbia are iffy to say the least.) And of course Howard County as a whole will almost certainly remain predominantly suburban in character, no matter what happens in Columbia proper.

But that’s OK. A lot of people like the suburbs, and even allowing for higher gas prices and other factors it’s likely that suburban life will continue to be attractive to many. The key for Howard County is to continue to be a better suburb: better than it is now, better than other Baltimore-Washington suburbs as they are today, and better than those other suburbs as they might evolve in future.

How might this be done? As will become apparent, I don’t know a lot about the fine points of suburban planning (although I may try to learn more if I stay interested in this subject), but here are some off-the-cuff ideas, offered not because I think they’re authoritative answers but more in the spirit of encouraging constructive dialogue:

Maintain relative advantages in the core suburban selling points. I see the two most important of these being security and education: Having a (perceived to be) safe environment in which to raise children, coupled with a taxpayer-supported school system to provide them a (perceived to be) good education. (I say “perceived to be” because perception and reality are not always in sync; see my comment below.) The main task here is to preserve these attributes in a time during which the county will likely come under increased fiscal pressure due to rising costs and an economy that will likely be relatively stagnant compared to past years.

This doesn’t mean blindly continuing business as usual in terms of funding and strategy. In the realm of education in particular there are going to be lots of things happening in the next 10-20 years that will shake things up, including the growth of online education as a major complement to in-classroom instruction. During times of stagnant government revenues we’ll need to look for ever more productive ways to leverage school and public safety funding.

I think it will be better if the county can do that from a position of fiscal strength, so that essential county services are preserved; if such services go downhill it will be very difficulty to reverse adverse perceptions on the part of individuals or businesses considering relocating to Howard County. (For a good example of this problem see the recent Urbanite article about trying to demonstrate to people that many Baltimore public schools are in reality pretty good.)

Provide more opportunities to work, shop, and play locally. Although Baltimore and DC haven’t moved in terms of actual distance, as a practical matter traffic congestion is causing them to recede further and further over the horizon as time goes on. This effect is particularly pronounced in the case of DC and its suburbs. Because of the nature of my job I travel all over the DC metro area, and it’s astonishing how travel times have lengthened, especially for return trips in the afternoon and evening; from where I live in Ellicott City I’m now over an hour away from Bethesda and the close-in Maryland suburbs, over an hour and a half away from downtown DC, and (at least for the return trip) over two hours away from Reston, Herndon, and other northern Virginia locations.

In my opinion that makes it all the more important to foster employment growth and commercial development within Columbia and Howard County, so that there’s a critical mass of opportunities to live, work, and spend leisure time nearby. Some people are concerned that the planned Columbia Town Center development and other initiatives will increase traffic congestion by both increasing the local population and attracting commuters from elsewhere. That may be true, but I think the alternative is worse: I’d rather deal with some localized congestion commuting to a job within Howard County than have to drive a ways out of the county and then have to deal with equivalent or worse local congestion at my destination.

Ruthlessly reimagine traditional features of Columbia and the county at large. A good example here is the set of village centers in Columbia. Whatever role they might have played in the original vision of Columbia, to an outsider coming into Columbia today they are simply strip shopping centers that are inconveniently located. For better or worse increased mobility on the part of Columbia’s residents has altered the basic economic equation for the village centers: the more village residents shop outside the village, the more the centers need to attract custom from non-village residents in order to survive.

To me this sounds the death knell for the idea promoted by Alan Klein and others that “certain services, such as a basic grocery store be considered required elements in a Columbia village center.” A “basic” grocery is worse than useless in attracting outside business; far better in my opinion to provide a non-traditional grocery store that can attract significant outside business while still serving village residents. Other ways to differentiate village centers might include one-of-a-kind restaurants, boutiques, and other services, live/work spaces or coworking spaces.

I have no idea whether any of these might be sufficient to keep the village centers viable for the long term, especially the older and more inconveniently located ones. For at least some village centers it might be better to wipe the slate clean and start over rather than keep them on life support. And if preserving village centers as they were is truly important to preserving the vision of Columbia then CA or the county can consider subsidizing some of them or even buying them out to be used for public purposes. Maybe if all else fails they can even turn Wilde Lake Village Center into a living museum of Columbia, complete with Jim Rouse impersonator and interpretive guides.

Create attractive “starter neighborhoods” for families of modest means looking to “move up” into Howard County. There’s been a lot of discussion about having affordable housing as part of the new Columbia Town Center development, as opposed to having it be limited to the supposed “wealthy few.” I won’t quibble with the sentiment behind this, but the practicality of it is another matter. To the extent that Columbia in general, and Town Center in particular, become more attractive places to live, they will also be more expensive places to live, as market demand combined with relatively limited supply drives up prices. This convergence of people willing to spend serious money is exactly what makes it attractive to developers like GGP to make a bet on Columbia and Howard County; to quote Jim Rouse again, “profit . . . was our primary objective,” and nothing has changed in that regard.

Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t the Route 1 corridor a better place for truly affordable housing? I don’t mean this in a “let’s put ‘those folks’ out of sight across I-95” sort of way. I’m talking about fully integrating the Route 1 corridor as part of Howard County, including having as full a range of housing, shopping, and employment opportunities as elsewhere in the county, just more affordable. In sum, we want the neighborhoods along Route 1 to be the sort of places where families of modest means can aspire to live, places that partake in all the positive features that make Howard County a “better suburb.”

Upgrade the architecture a bit. One of the things that goes into a sense of place is the built environment of a community, both at the macro-scale (large architectural icons that “brand” a locale, like the Empire State Building in New York) and at the micro-scale (the street-level mix of office, retail, and residential buildings). Unfortunately Columbia had the misfortune to be built during the 60s and 70s, an era not known for architectural excellence. It’s pretty sad when your major claim to architectural distinction is a bit of Frank Gehry apprentice work. We can and should do better.

Unfortunately in practice Columbia and Howard County have very little chance of emulating Columbus, Indiana, and being home to world-class architecture in a suburban context. Howard County lacks the combination of truly wealthy philanthropists and status-seeking private-sector employers that has driven showcase architecture in Columbus and elsewhere, and given fiscal constraints governments cannot take up their mantle as architectural patrons (as they have done in Europe, for example). Things are even more bleak on the residential side, since both home buyers and home builders are notoriously conservative when it comes to architectural innovation.

Beyond continuing to press developers to be just a tad more adventurous, perhaps the best approach might simply be to limit the extent to which any one architectural vision and design scheme is carried out, whether in Columbia Town Center or elsewhere. This is the secret to many cities, for example: There’s enough variety that on any few blocks there’s a good chance of finding one or two architectural gems (relatively speaking), and whatever clunkers exist aren’t big enough to ruin the whole area.

Foster a few “extras” that are unique to Columbia and Howard County. In a comment to a previous post of mine Columbia 20something mentioned wanting to have some aspects of Howard County that were truly special and one of a kind:

There need to be unique traits that really make the town come alive. . . . Concepts like “uniformity” and “replicable” have no place in creating a destination. . . . Columbia needs to shift away from being simply a better suburb to being a unique destination and a unique home.

Such a sense of uniqueness could be associated with particular places, particular events, or other features of county living.

Being one of a kind, these are the sort of things that can make a significant contribution to creating a true sense of place. However they’re also the hardest things to plan or predict in advance. As Columbia 20something noted, stereotypical planning can kill the very uniqueness it seeks to foster. (This is also the crux of the argument against Richard Florida-style “creative class” economic development strategies.)

In the end, unless it’s blessed with extraordinary geographic features the sense of uniqueness about a place arises mostly from how it’s evolved through its own unique and idiosyncratic history, and that is in large part of function of the unique and idiosyncratic people who lived there and made it what it was and is. So if we want one-of-a-kind attractions perhaps the only way to get there is to attract and be welcoming to one-of-a-kind people and then step back and see what happens.

That’s a good lead-in to the next article planned for this series, which will address how to translate into the 21st century the values of social tolerance, diversity, and inclusiveness that formed part of the founding vision of Columbia.

wordbones - 2010-06-10 00:19

Frank, Once again, excellent post. A manifesto for Columbia development moving forward. Well done. -wb

wildelakemike (mdavis@darslaw.com) - 2010-06-10 10:35

I must echo WB’s compliment. Well done! Actually, there is little in your post with which I would disagree. The concept of a “New City” deals only with the downtown area. By far the majority of Columbia will remain substantially the way it is now. And if there are things that we can do to improve the 95% of Columbia that would be physically untouched by downtown development, great. But whether Wilde Lake Village Center incorporates residential units, an “anchor” that would attract customers, or anything else to make it relevant again won’t change the essential character of the Village of Wilde Lake itself. On the other hand, reimagining the downtown to bring it into the 21st Century will change the character of current downtown from a “mall-centric” center to a “neighborhood-centric” community. Over 30 years, 5500 residential units will be integrated into substantially increased office/retail spaces, hopefully in a creative and attractive manner. Here is an interesting demographic thought. Right now, our town center has about 1500 dwelling units; it has been a while since I looked at this number, but that’s about right. Since Columbia has 40,000 units, that’s a pretty small percentage. Adding 5500 units still brings the total number of units in the downtown up to only 7000 +/-. This means that the “urban core” of Columbia would have only 15% to 16% of Columbia’s total dwelling units, a number that is certainly consistent with other similar communities in Maryland. More importantly, it will give builders the opportunity to build product that is totally lacking in Columbia - in Howard County - now. From 1967 to present, our population has grown from about 30,000 to 300,000 county-wide. By far the majority of the housing units in the County, therefore, were built during this expansion. The market was aimed at young families. So, we have an incredible number of dwelling units with lots and lots of steps. As our community has aged, those steps have become huge impediments in keeping the aging members of our community in Howard County. My wife and I have looked for a home in Howard County that has nice amenities associated with it, low maintenance, and whatever architectural elements that can make it somewhat unique. We have found that we are members of huge group of aging Columbians who want to “right size” into a home that no longer is needed for the care and feeding of children - except the occasional visits from grandchildren. The pent up demand for such housing in Howard County is very strong. So, having housing options that incorporate elements of univeral design that promote visitability will be important. People are already standing in line. If those units could be incorporated into neighborhoods with lots of age diversity, good shopping and access to services, and true walkability, then we can have the downtown we really need. Perhaps, I just got ahead of you. But it is exciting to ponder the future of our downtown!

Sarah - 2010-06-10 11:02

This is great! I have a few small quibbles with it, but as this is your opinion and I have mine, I will leave it at that; this is very well done. I do want to address the thought process behind affordable housing for a second. The idea (for better or for worse; I don’t support all affordable housing efforts, but I’m explaining the logic behind them as I understand it) behind the affordable housing components is that everyone benefits when people live in mixed-income neighborhoods. It’s often painted as a “poor people should have nice homes too,” but really, everyone benefits from the diversity. There are all kinds of diversity in the world, but I would argue that here and now (in Columbia in 2010), socio-economic is one of the most difficult to get over. How many Columbians lament the effects of the poor black people coming from Baltimore, or the section 8 housing that is ruining our community, or the gang activity migrating from the city that is so quickly seeping into our existence? Likewise, how many Baltimoreans judge Columbia as stuck up, white, rich suburbanites with no concern for anyone but their own existence, just driving our SUVs from large chain store to large chain restaurant to soccer practice for little Johnny? A little getting-to-know-each-other goes a long way, and that’s part of the idea with having truly integrated mixed-income housing as opposed to having a section of moderately priced housing out by Route 1.

HDG (hocohayduke@gmail.com) - 2010-06-10 12:17

There are plenty of starter neighborhoods in Columbia already – Oakland Mills, Long Reach, Owen Brown, primarily. The challenge is keeping housing stock in these neighborhoods in good condition. Jessie talked about this a bit in a recent post. Anecdotally, there are a lot of young families in my little corner of Columbia (Stevens Forest).

hecker - 2010-06-10 13:00

HDG: Thanks for your comment. When I wrote this section I was on the one hand trying to push back against the idea that a redeveloped Town Center needed to have lots of affordable housing, and on the other hand trying to promote Route 1 corridor development. So the existence of affordable housing elsewhere in Columbia sort of fell through the cracks in the writing.

JessieX - 2010-06-10 13:33

Did I tell you, you rock, Frank? I think I did. Well, if I haven’t told you lately, I think you rock! :-) HDG - I was passing along an article a Columbia kid-turned-farmer-and-B&B-owner sent me: The Best Neighborhoods for the Money 2010 http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/04/29/americas-best-neighborhoods-for-the-money-2010/ Scroll down to the fifth or sixth (or whatever) entry. “The Best Neighborhoods for the Money” is very diff than a “starter neighborhood,” imo. But, still and all, it was an interesting factoid to share.

hecker - 2010-06-10 16:41

Sarah: Thanks for your comment. Please feel free to quibble; these posts are not oracular pronouncements from on high, they’re imperfect observations from someone of limited knowledge. Having people point out where I’m wrong, and put forward different value judgments, is part of the fun. On the question of socioeconomic diversity, I agree with the general principle but believe you can take it only so far. I think it makes sense to have a fair amount of income diversity within neighborhoods, and also to have a variety of neighborhoods within a community suited to different ranges of income. But I don’t believe that social justice demands that 100% (or 90% or 80% or some other high number) of all Howard County households be able to afford to live a particular neighborhood. The other point here is on the demand side: People who are attracted to a suburb in the first place are probably going to want to live the suburban lifestyle, which is car-centric and oriented towards single-family homes. So to me that says it makes sense to foster affordable neighborhoods where a family of modest means could aspire to eventually own their own single-family dwelling, as opposed to having affordable housing just equate to apartments, townhouses, or condos in a high-density area like the redeveloped Town Center.

Sarah - 2010-06-10 16:46

I totally agree. Affordable housing shouldn’t only exist in Town Center, and I also take issue with advocates harping on affordable housing in new developments while ignoring all the affordable housing that DOES exist (see: Baltimore City affordable housing issues.) Beyond that, I also take issue with a developer having to pay for all this affordable housing. Except that I take issue with the “suburban lifestyle” having to be car-centric and single-family homes, at least in theory, I want to :) I think that’s starting to shift somewhat.

Columbia 20something (msfennell@gmail.com) - 2010-06-11 02:30

Another great post, Frank! I also agree with Sarah. Not all suburbanites want a car-centric lifestyle. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty harmful given the new homes, businesses, and attractions that will help grow Columbia. With an increased density, a strong public transport system, along with more consideration given to pedestrians and bicyclists, will make Columbia more livable– and more attractive.

hecker - 2010-06-12 11:24

Wildelakemike: Your point about the need for a more diverse set of housing options, and in particular for age-appropriate housing, is very well-taken. I basically agree with your analysis, and have only a couple of points to add. First, one demonstration of this demand is the relative premium commanded by ranchers relative to other houses of equivalent square footage.(We’ve experienced this first hand in our own search for a house.) Our curent neighborhood in Ellicott City (which dates back 40-50 years) has a higher than usual percentage of them, and a lot of older original residents who have thereby been enabled to age in place and not have to move to a seniors-only community. unfortunately as houses have become larger and lots smaller, ranchers have essentially disappeared as a mainstream housing option. Second, I think it’s important that age-appropriate housing (including places with universal design feature) be integrated into the general mix of housing in the future Town Center and elsewhere, as opposed to being segregated into “55 or better” enclaves. This is more than just a mater of promoting age diversity within neighborhoods. Between people having children later, a stagnant economy that will limit the ability of new graduates to live independently, and the occasional breakdown in families that leaves grandparents serving as parents, it will often be a necessity for older people to be able to have younger people reside with them.

hecker - 2010-06-12 11:48

Columbia 20something: Your and Sarah’s points about the desirability of making Columbia less car-centric are well-taken. I think there is only so much that can be done here, since any future high-density area inColumbia won’t be all that large (as wildelakemike points out) and Howard County as a whole will still be at a level of density that will make a car a necessity once you get beyond Town Center. Having relative freedom of movement is a core suburban value, one that bus systems and taxis can’t really address. Perhaps the solution here is some sort of system by which people in Town Center could get access to cars on an on-demand basis, for example via commercial services like Zipcar that maintain their own fleets, commercial services like the proposed RelayRide that would allow people to rent their cars to others when they’re not using them, or formal “car co-op” arrangements established among groups of people either on their own or under county or CA sponsorship.