In today's Washington Post Dan Malouff makes an argument against bringing the Washington football team back to the city. For out-of-towners, the team's current stadium is located in Prince George's County.
According to Malouff big sports stadiums don't "fit" in cities because they need large, open-air parking lots for tailgaters and aren't used very often (most NFL teams play 8 home games a year). Let's leave the stadiums to the suburbs he concludes.
Malouff's argument is against the grain. As he notes, the DC city council is considering luring the team back into the city by offering to finance a new stadium.
I'm ambivalent about where Dan Snyder's team plays, but I can't help feeling a little insulted by Malouff's opinion. It's as if the suburbs are DC's dumping ground. If DC shouldn't want a new NFL stadium why should the suburbs?
I'm sure Malouff is familiar with DC's suburbs; he's described as an Arlington County transportation planner. So, he must know that many of DC's suburbs are as 'urban' as the city is. And, many of them are becoming, or trying to become, more urban by allowing higher density housing, courting mixed used development, and encouraging more walkable retail. The last thing these suburbs need is heavy game day traffic, enormous parking lots, and public venues rarely in use.
As it is, the infrastructure to host a large stadium in the suburbs is not there and these communities only have money to waste in a stadium or to build the roads needed to shuffle all the suffering fans of the local sport teams. They just not have enough for both. Just look at the mess that is getting to Fedex Field where the local NFL franchise plays. If you leave at 10AM for a 1PM kickoff time, you will be arriving at your seat at halftime.
ReplyDeleteOh, and if the dopes in the DC Council think that they will build a training facility, let alone an enormous stadium, to the NFL team before they build a stadium for DC United in the city, they have another thing coming!