Smart Growth Pet Peeves Continued--Elitism.

I want to like smart growth.  I really do.  I used to walk to work when I lived in DC, and I would love to live in such a walkable place again.  It was good for me (built in exercise) and the environment (no emissions since the car stayed parked most days). 

But, several things keep me from jumping on the smart growth bandwagon.  In my last post I complained about the transportation and infrastructure blind spots smart growth advocates have. They encourage building up at metro but ignore the fact that DC's metro system is falling apart.  Building up in this context just adds to metro's woes.  I was also put off by the cheery indifference smart growth advocates have to people who need cars and places to park them.  Some people need a car because they don't work near a metro station (even if they live by one).  In households with couples it is common to find one person who can use the metro and another who can't (and thus needs a space to park the car).  For smart growthers, though, these kinds of nuances just don't matter.  For them, we should all walk, bike, or metro to work, circumstances be damned. 

Today, as promised, I'll share my other pet peeve about smart growth.  It is inherently elitist.

Let's start with who smart growth advocates are targeting as their best potential acolytes--millennials.  It's now common wisdom that Millennials prefer city living and don't like cars.  Ok, maybe some of them like cars, but they can't actually afford to buy them, pay insurance, and cover parking costs.  Either way, they have a penchant for living in walkable neighborhoods near downtown, or next to metro hubs that will get them there. 

People who write about millennials often act as if this preference is natural, an obvious choice in the modern world.  However, not so many years ago the fashion was the exact opposite.  If you could afford to live away from the city center, and transit hubs, you did.  It was where crime, excess noise, and crowds presumably clustered. 

I bring up the fashion element here because fashionable things are often expensive.  In the context of smart growth, this means that when DC, MOCO, or Arlington County approve plans to build high-density housing near metro stops, they are usually talking about luxury apartment or condo developments.  If you don't believe me, just look at the advertisements for these apartment complexes near metro stations.

The Portico in downtown Silver Spring describes itself as "a luxury apartment community."  Rents for a 1 bedroom start at $1,702.  The View, a new 17 story building in Arlington uses similar language, describing itself as a complex of "luxury apartments a short stroll from Ballston Metro" that provides a "service focused approach to living" (because who doesn't need good servants?).  Rents for 540 square foot efficiencies start at $2,000.  One bedrooms with dens begin at $2,550.  A two bedroom--you'll need to shell out at least $4,300.

These rents don't just determine who will and won't move into new buildings.  They also affect people already living nearby, many of whom pay much lower rents.  These people are often forced out as landlords raise rents to compete for a share of the luxury market. 

How do smart growth advocates respond to the fact that building up, around transit hubs has resulted in high end development and displacement?  Many advocates have little to say about the trend.  For them higher density and fewer cars on the roads is what matters.  Others concede the lopsided nature of smart development, but think a few units set aside for low income residents will suffice.

Neither answer is satisfactory.  The first suggests that smart growth is not (and perhaps never was) about getting all of us out of our cars.  Rather, it is about selling a particular lifestyle to professionals in the millennial generation and beyond.  What happens to people who aren't professional doesn't seem to matter, even though many of them are forced to move further away from metros and rely on cars to get to work.

The second answer--to provide a few set asides to solve the problem--is akin to plugging a dam leak with a wad of gum.  It is insufficient to the task at hand.

So, the next time someone tells me I should get out of my car and walk to work, I'm going to ask them when my check arrives.  If I'm going to live with hubby, baby boy, and dog in The View, I'm going to need some help.

Next up:  Bonus Smart Growth Pet Peeve--it's all about the 1-bedroom. 

Some Love for the Purple Line

The Purple Line is one step closer to becoming reality after Wednesday's announcement that the Federal Transit Administration had included the Purple Line on a list of 7 projects slated for "new starts" grants. 

Although the state has been lining up private money for the project, few people believe private money will materialize without federal backing.  In that regard, Wednesday's news can be viewed as an insurance policy of sorts--private money is now more likely and with it so is the purple line.     

Here's the most recent map of the proposed route. 

Of late the coverage about the purple line has focused on its opponents (e.g. the Town of Chevy Chase).  As with any big public works project, though, the goal is to benefit far more people than you disadvantage.  So, what are the benefits of a Purple Line?  Here are two that come to (my) mind:  

1.  The purple line will update the metro system's hub and spoke design.  A hub and spoke network is basically designed to move people from suburb to city (and vice versa).  People that want to go from suburb to suburb don't tend to get much benefit from a hub and spoke system because the spokes only connect through the hub.  If I want to take the metro to go from Silver Spring to Bethesda, for example, I have to go through DC and then back out again.  The distance by road is about 5 miles.  By train it's around 15 miles.  The purple line will provide people going between Maryland's DMV suburbs with another, faster public transportation option.  

2.  Transit beckons development.  Urban planners love something called 'smart growth,' which in the DMV usually translates into building at higher density around transit points.  And, since the fashion these days is the 'mixed use development,' the transit stations along the purple line could see a boost in housing and retail options.  This trend won't have a huge affect in a place like Bethesda, which is already well developed, but stops on the eastern half of the line, where development has been anemic, could really benefit.   

There are, of course, potential downsides.  And, it is worth considering those not normally considered in the papers (i.e. let's stop worrying about those poor wretches with the best legal representation money can buythe Town of Chevy Chase for a minute and think about who else might see less love than pain from the purple line)

1.  The working class Hispanic population.  Let me start with some context.  Most of the transit stops along the proposed purple line are in areas geographers and urban studies types call 'first suburbs.'  The Brookings Institution defines first suburbs with two criteria--they were built before 1950 and are located in counties adjacent to the main city.  In DC this usually means suburbs inside (or touching the beltway).  First suburbs are a study in contradiction.  Some of their neighborhoods are quite posh (Bethesda).  But, some have experienced significant disinvestment (Langley Park).  This is especially true as you move east along the proposed purple line.  This wealth gradient means that housing in MoCo's eastern suburbs and PG county's western suburbs has become an affordable oasis in a metro area where housing prices are ridiculous (see my earlier post on this topic here).  Big stretches of University Boulevard, for example, now have large immigrant populations from Central America.  The area around 'Tick Tock' Liquor store is a veritable little El Salvador.  There are also some amazing Asian and African places tucked in between the pupersaries and Peruvian chicken places.  The boom of immigrants to these areas has made them culturally vibrant places.  Developers coming into these neighborhoods may appreciate this 'diversity' as a selling point, but they probably won't build new houses or apartments for the working class Hispanics already living in the area.  Instead, they'll do what developers in DC have done--aim for the luxury market.  And, that will mean gentrification and displacement.