Posts by Dan Reed

Being in downtown Silver Spring less than a mile from the Metro, the 2½ acres the police station sits on are very valuable. Perhaps a better use for this site would be a mix of studio space and artist housing, not unlike Renaissance Square and the Mount Rainier Artist Lofts, two apartment buildings in the Gateway Arts District, or the Brookland Artspace Lofts, a building in Northeast Washington. All three buildings rent apartments and live-work units at subsidized rates to people who earn their living making art.

These buildings, which are each 100% occupied, offer artists who often have low incomes a quality place to live. According to the Census, the median rent in below-the-Beltway Silver Spring is $1206 a month, but actual apartment listings suggest that's only enough for a one-bedroom apartment. Meanwhile, a one-bedroom in the Brookland Artspace Lofts with studio space rents for $970, while a two-bedroom is just $1,205.

We could turn the police station into an arts center as proposed, but also build low-rise artist housing around it. A smaller community garden could be built, or it could instead be located in any of the 46 other parks in below-the-Beltway Silver Spring and Takoma Park. The lawn in front of the police station could still become a small public space for the neighborhood.

This proposal would cost more to build and may require public money. The Brookland Artspace Lofts in the District, developed by the same company that built the apartments in Mount Rainier, received $11 million in construction funding and tax credits from the DC Department of Housing and Community Development. If a funding source is found, however, artist housing could provide more customers for local businesses while developing a more substantial and diverse arts scene.

When I suggested this to Karen Roper and Steve Knight, two of the residents leading the push for the Station Arts Center, they were skeptical. "It's a little more unstructured and bohemian," Knight says. "I know one of the artists we talked to, she's married and has a house and a family." He wants to know "how strong of a need" there is for artist housing in Silver Spring.

"My neighbors ... bought their houses cheap" decades ago, says Roper. "They're looking for studio space." She notes that "two, possibly three" buildings with subsidized apartments will be built on Fenton Street in coming years, while a developer wants to renovate the Eagle Bank building at Sligo Avenue and Fenton Street into "microlofts," or small apartments geared at single adults.

One of the reasons the county may support the current Station Arts Center proposal is because of their experience with the new police station in White Oak. Plans to sell extra land around the station to build a mix of affordable and market-rate housing in 2009 were met with intense community opposition before they eventually backed down. Whether the county uses the old police station property to meet its affordable housing goals or make money by selling it to a private developer, dealing with angry neighbors will be inevitable.

That's why Roper and her neighbors are trying to start the conversation about development. "We wanted to get out there and make our pitch before somebody came in and did the same old, same old," she says. "I would like to see some imagination in this county. It's not about how much you develop, it's about how you develop."

Roper wants the Station Arts Center to distinguish Fenton Village from the rest of Silver Spring, calling it the "only thing that represents us and who we are."

As I've written before, having spaces for making art makes our community stronger. Even if I don't agree with every part of the Station Arts Center concept, I'm glad that neighbors are being proactive about what they'd like to see in their community.

That said, Karen Roper might be okay with a few more apartments if they allowed the neighborhood to keep its artistic flair. "I'd rather live in a dense, crowded place with artists and musicians," she says. "When you take that character away, you just have a bunch of crap next to each other."

Many of those neighbors were artists who lacked space to work. "[They] have outgrown working in their attics or basements and they're ready to move to something bigger or more serious," says Knight.

Roper worries that new development would make downtown Silver Spring "an audience district" by pushing them out. "We're an arts district that has no space for artists," says Roper. "East Silver Spring is full of artists. That's who we've always been."

One of those artists, Laurie Breen, located her studio in the Gateway Arts Center in Brentwood, which opened two years ago in a former government surplus warehouse. Run by the Gateway Community Development Corporation and the Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation, the center holds classes, has two galleries, along with studios for 13 artists.

Roper wanted to create a place like that in Silver Spring. Her group envisions turning the 1960's-era police station into the Station Arts Center, a place where local artists can make and display their work and residents take classes. The parking lot in back would be turned into a community garden with 44 plots and "plenty of parking," while the front lawn would become an outdoor hangout like "the Turf," the temporary green that stood where Veterans Plaza is today.

The station is located between downtown's high-rises and the porch-fronted bungalows of East Silver Spring, and both Roper and Knight refer to it as a good place for a "transition" or "buffer" between the two while reinforcing the community's character. A thousand units will be built in Fenton Village over the next few years, says Roper, but "there's no green space, there's no community gardens, and there's no space for artists."

Knight and Burditt introduced the Station Arts Center concept in a column for the Silver Spring Voice. To "prove a need and a desire" for the project, the group is circulating a petition.

Civic groups and the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board have also been receptive. "When I pitched the idea of an arts center and community garden, people loved it," Roper says, adding that David Dise, director of the county's Department of General Services, called it the "best proposal he'd ever heard for Silver Spring."

Roper, Knight and Morales took a quick tour of the police station and found it wouldn't take much to turn it into an arts center.

"I think you could go in there on Day 1 and have a fairly reasonable artist space," says Knight, noting that the building and its mechanical systems were in good repair, but could be reconfigured easily. "I don't think there's anything sacred [architecturally] about the building. It provides a pretty good blank slate to start with." There are also more unusual features, like an underground shooting range beneath the parking lot, which Roper says would make a "cool darkroom" for photographers.

There are some issues, namely a lack of natural light. But "if the resources presented themselves," Knight says, "it wouldn't be really impinging the building's structural integrity if you wanted to punch some more windows into it."

Roper's excited about the building's aesthetic qualities. "The police station is funky and square and 60's in look ... it lends itself well to an arts center," she says.

The Parks Department is "extremely enthusiastic" about the community garden, she adds, because the site is already publicly owned and fenced off, requiring little additional work. Knight notes that there was a "pretty positive response" to one at Fenton Street Park, two blocks away.

Meanwhile, the lawn in front of the police station would become a "front yard" that Knight compares to "the Turf." It would be a "more casual outdoor space for people where you can just walk out, lay out a beach towel and get a tan."

"We're not going to blanket the police station in Astroturf," he jokes.

Though the design isn't finished, Roper estimates that it will cost $750,000 to renovate the police station. She is currently looking for a nonprofit group to operate the arts center, which would sustain itself by renting between 25 and 50 studios to working artists, offering classes to the public and some sort of "retail place."

"All we need from the county is a short-term lease," says Roper. "We don't need any funds from them."

Will the Station Arts Center plan work? We'll look at it in more detail tomorrow, along with one change I think could make it better.

Maybe if it's covered in plants, like this one in Miami Beach, Florida. While there's nothing wrong with accommodating drivers who'd otherwise drive all the way to work, just building more parking spaces won't help the environment - or Glenmont, for that matter.

How did this happen?

In 2006, WMATA proposed building a new parking garage on 10 acres of land they own along the west side of Georgia Avenue. The existing 1,700-space garage fills up often, they claimed. Neighbors didn't want a garage in their backyards, and county planners agreed, suggesting that it be built on the east side next to the old one.

However, WMATA staff estimated that it would cost nearly $23,000 a space to build a garage on the east side, compared to about $16,000 on the west. Seeing the potential for savings, the County Council voted to fund the construction of a garage on the west side of Georgia in 2007.

WMATA's design required tearing down an acre of forest the county wanted to preserve, but the Planning Board reluctantly approved it, arguing that sending them back to the drawing board would be a waste of time and public funds. Nonetheless, then-Chairman Royce Hanson called the garage "both an injury and an insult to the neighborhood."

The county and state of Maryland spent $24.7 million building this garage, or $20,312 a space. Not only did they spend more than originally planned, but they've wasted an opportunity to do the "green" thing: create revenue-generating, neighborhood-compatible development along Georgia Avenue.

What should they have done instead?

In a presentation at Rail~Volution last fall, Jason Schrieber, principal at planning firm Nelson\Nygaard, noted that transit stations in town centers often have more riders than those served only by park-and-rides. In addition, placing other uses around transit creates both economic and public safety benefits for the surrounding community.

With about 5,800 riders each weekday in 2010, the Glenmont Metro station actually has more customers than neighboring Wheaton, which is in a town center. But it still pales in comparison to other Red Line stations in downtowns, like Bethesda (10,600) or Silver Spring (13,400). Meanwhile, just 17% of people living within a half-mile of Glenmont take the Metro to work, compared to 35% in Silver Spring. These are people who probably wouldn't drive to the station, so a new parking garage won't encourage them to use transit.

To truly increase transit ridership and help the environment, the new parking garage at Glenmont should have been designed to fit into a larger neighborhood scheme, like the one envisioned in the Glenmont Sector Plan nearly 15 years ago.

For instance, the new garage could have included ground-floor retail, like this one in Clarendon, providing activity along Georgia Avenue and encouraging commuters to spend time and money in Glenmont. Or the garage could have been designed to allow other buildings around it, like at Bethesda Row, where a county parking garage is located in the center of a city block with housing, shops, and offices.

Though Glenmont struggles with disinvestment, it's one of the few Metro station areas in Montgomery County where private development is happening without public subsidies. After years of delays, local developer JBG is finally moving forward with Glenmont Metrocenter, which will turn a 1960's-era apartment complex into a mixed-use community with 1500 homes and 90,000 square feet of retail without a single dollar of county funds.

WMATA could have made money by selling the land around their new garage for future development from which the county could receive tax revenue. Meanwhile, the neighborhood would have more amenities, more residents or workers who could walk or bike to the Metro, and more "eyes on the street," making the area safer.

County planners are beginning to revise the 1997 plan for Glenmont, but a large chunk of the neighborhood's potential for revitalization is now be gone. There's only so much land next to Metro stations in Montgomery County and Greater Washington as a whole, and we have to use it wisely.

Hopefully, the mistakes made in Glenmont will serve as an example of what not to do elsewhere.

In an interview with Bethesda Magazine, Stanley said he'd "never planned on doing suburbs" before coming here. But he took the county's history of progressive planning, going back to the On Wedges & Corridors plan in 1964, and crafted a vision to use its transit corridors and aging commercial centers to accommodate projected population growth.

Allow denser development in the right places, he argued, and raise tax revenues that can pay for public amenities while preserving the suburban neighborhoods so many people like. It's an approach that suburbs around the country are taking, from Overland Park, Kansas to Bellevue, Washington, and even right in our own backyard, in Arlington and Tysons Corner.

Over the past four years, I've watched Stanley speak to groups ranging from developers to senior citizens; participated in a blogger panel he organized; and reached out to him personally for advice. His ability to make good planning and design relevant to ordinary, politically uninvolved people is why I want to become a planner myself.

Stanley not only talks about the tax benefits of new development, but the potential to create cool places like downtown Silver Spring, where he and his wife lived. Silver Spring's food carts or the street life on Ellsworth Drive were frequently mentioned on his blog, which along with another blog run by planning staff gave residents an inside look at how the Planning Department worked.

The Planning Department also became more active in the community under Stanley's leadership. His "walkabouts" in various neighborhood allowed him meet with residents in an informal setting. In 2010, the agency held a speaker series where community leaders talked about issues affecting the county. A series of open houses are being held this month to educate residents about a rewrite of the zoning code that'll make it easier for anyone to understand.

It's this inclusive approach that has earned Stanley support for his initiatives, namely a plan for the redevelopment of White Flint, where the tallest building in Montgomery County recently opened. People who don't normally write their elected officials or place lawn signs in their yard were receptive to his vision of a dense, walkable town center, and with the help of a solid organizing campaign by the White Flint Partnership, they came out in support for it.

While working for Montgomery County Councilmember George Leventhal, I was responsible for answering correspondence about the White Flint plan. Of the roughly 700 e-mails we received, two-thirds were in support, while at the County Council's public hearings for the plan, supporters outnumbered opponents.

Stanley was a polarizing figure, earning the ire of civic associations and even people within his agency who didn't agree with him. Plans for additional development in the Great Seneca Science Corridor and Kensington were met with significant community opposition before eventually being approved.

Detractors claimed that he was "dismissive" of residents' concerns and didn't "value opposing opinions." And he occasionally made inappropriate comments, such as referring to an organization that disagreed with him as "rich, white women" that led to calls for him to resign.

Those who demanded Stanley's ouster may be satisfied to see him go, but the ship has already turned. Montgomery County was well on its way to becoming a taller, denser, more diverse place before he came and will continue to do so after he leaves. The question is whether we can find another planning director with the same passion and vision who can keep us moving forward.

There's also what appears to be a basketball court and baseball diamond. (In case you're as unfamiliar with the site as I was, the campus does not include Holly Hall, a retirement community whose red-brick buildings make it look like part of the college.)

What can one do with a former college? Naturally, the campus would lend itself to another school, but we shouldn't be limited by that. The campus might be a nice place for a security-minded government tenant to locate, but judging from the stalled progress at St. Elizabeth's in the District, it's unlikely that any federal agencies will be poking around here.

Besides, we probably don't want that anyway. When the Food and Drug Administration relocated their headquarters to the former Naval Ordnance Laboratory farther up New Hampshire Avenue, there was an opportunity to use its 710-acre property for a mix of uses, including retail, housing or parkland.

But neighbors in Hillandale "[were] going to have none of that," as one resident told the Washington Post. Instead, we got an isolated office campus whose 7,000 workers barely venture out for lunch, much to the chagrin of local restaurants.

The National Labor College land is far too valuable to make that mistake again. It's next to the Beltway and just one exit away from I-95. It's also part of the White Oak Science Gateway, which is what county planners call the research and development center they'd like to create in the area. There are a lot of possibilities here, and we shouldn't be so quick to shut them off.

It's not every day that 47 acres suddenly appears in the middle of an established community. This is a great opportunity and we'd do well to seize it.

The decision ends a long and often acrimonious debate over how to spark the redevelopment of downtown Wheaton. In February, Leggett's administration claimed that there wasn't enough money to pay for revitalization in Wheaton and a new Metro entrance in Bethesda, pitting supporters of both projects against each other.

When the council found funding for both projects, the conversation turned to the merits of Leggett's proposal. While County Council analyst Jacob Sesker wasn't opposed to building atop the Metro, he created the alternative proposals because he felt it wasn't feasible in the immediate future. Meanwhile, the Coalition for a Fair Redevelopment of Wheaton has expressed concerns about local businesses, calling for a more substantial town square or a community benefits agreement.

These questions led to accusations that the council was being meddlesome and was opposed to making Wheaton better. After the vote on Tuesday, resident Henriot St. Gerard wrote a scathing blog post on Wheaton Patch calling it a "show of disrespect" to the community.

I understand that people in Wheaton are impatient for change. I grew up in East County and started blogging six years ago because I wanted to see the kind of amenities that residents of Rockville or Bethesda enjoy right in my own backyard. But I too have had to grapple with a few uncomfortable truths:

Jobs are concentrated on the west side of the county and will remain there for a long time.

In 2010, there were 506,000 jobs in Montgomery County, 70% of which are located along the I-270 corridor. Bethesda alone has 87,000 jobs, more than Silver Spring, White Oak and Wheaton combined. Plans for additional employment growth in White Flint, the Great Seneca Science Corridor, and Germantown ensures that the west side will continue to remain the county's job center.

Companies located in East County aren't sticking around.

Last year, defense contractor BAE Systems moved a branch office from Aspen Hill to Rockville. The empty building added to an already high vacancy rate in the Kensington-Wheaton area, where nearly a quarter of all office space is empty, compared to just 11 percent countywide. Lee Development Group, which owns the building, will replace it with a Walmart because they concluded that the area was "a retail destination, not an office center."

Companies already located on the west side aren't interested in going east.

The county is planning to create a research and development center in East County called the White Oak Science Gateway around the Food and Drug Administration's new campus. Though the area enjoys the lowest office vacancy rate in the county, with just 6 percent of offices sitting empty, it's unclear who will fill them.

A recent report from planning consultants surveyed research and development firms located at the county's existing Life Sciences Center in Gaithersburg and found that wouldn't move to White Oak because they appreciate the proximity to other R&D firms along the I-270 corridor.

Officials are more concerned about keeping jobs in the county than where they specifically end up.

In addition to planning for future job growth on the west side, the county also gave subsidies to one company in exchange for moving there. Next year, Choice Hotels will move their headquarters from Silver Spring to Rockville with $4.3 million in loans and grants from the county, state and City of Rockville and additional tax credits.

Choice Hotels wanted to be closer to a Metro station, so having them move to Wheaton would've met both their needs and Leggett's goals. But after seeing firms like Hilton Hotels and Northrup Grumman pass up Montgomery County for Northern Virginia, county leaders were surely relieved that they decided to stay here at all.

Wheaton has many strengths: stable neighborhoods, diverse population, and a compact downtown well-served by both transit and major roads. But as a potential job center, it competes with larger and more established places like downtown Bethesda, the I-270 corridor, and others throughout Greater Washington. That's why earlier recommen­da­tions for redeveloping Wheaton, both from the public and planning experts, focused on housing, retail and entertainment in the short term, with offices coming later if demand warrants it.

Residents are both eager and worried that redevelopment will turn Wheaton into a place like Silver Spring or Bethesda, but we shouldn't be limited to those examples. Skeptics of Leggett's proposal don't lack faith in Wheaton's potential. They recognize that Wheaton's constraints and strengths, if properly harnessed, will let it grow into something else entirely.

Leggett's proposal

In 2010, Leggett made an agreement with developer B.F. Saul to redevelop several county-owned parcels in the center of downtown Wheaton. On Parking Lot 13, located at the corner of Reedie Drive and Grandview Avenue, B.F. Saul would build a six-story, 250-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail and a new town square in a setup comparable to Bethesda Row.

The developer would also build a platform over the Wheaton Metro station's bus turnaround as the base for a hotel and three 14-story office buildings. With approximately 900,000 square feet, nine times the existing amount of Class A office space in downtown Wheaton, these buildings would bring about 3,600 workers to Wheaton's downtown every day.

Those offices would house the county's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of Permitting Services (DPS), both currently located in Rockville, along with the Park and Planning Commission, currently in Silver Spring.

The county would also like to find a federal government tenant, though the rent cap on government offices will require them to subsidize rent, as they already do for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's headquarters in downtown Silver Spring.

Leggett wants to set aside $42 million for the project, which would only cover the cost of building the platform. It's unclear how much it would cost to build the rest or whether the county or B.F. Saul would pay for it. Nonetheless, the proposal has been endorsed by the Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee and Mid-County Citizens Advisory Board, another developer working in Wheaton, and the Gazette.

Council plan similar, but priorities are different

Concerned about the size and cost of Leggett's proposal, the County Council's Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee offered a counterproposal last month. In their proposal, estimated to cost $55 million, B.F. Saul the county would build a new town square on Lot 13 with an underground parking garage, at a cost of $2.5 million and $5.6 million, respectively, along with a building for DEP and DPS for $46 million.

There's also room for the Park and Planning Commission if another $46 million is found to build another building. Both buildings would contain 415,000 square feet of office space and hold about 1,600 workers.

"It is misleading to say that $42 million will revitalize Wheaton," says Councilmember George Leventhal, who sits on the committee. (Full disclosure: I used to work for Leventhal.) "The only thing that $42 million buys now is a concrete hat over the bus bay, and if you want to relocate county agencies, the cost will go above $100 million."

Though local blogger Wheaton Calling accuses the council of "throwing a wrench" into the redevelopment process with their counterproposal, the benefits of Leggett's proposal remain unclear. The county's Department of Economic Development usually does a cost-benefit analysis of major public investments, like the $4 million big-box retailer Costco received to open a store in Wheaton Plaza, but they haven't done one for this project.

"The 'end' is not to build a platform, to execute a General Development Agreement, or to attract a federal tenant," writes Jacob Sesker, economic analyst for the County Council, in a report for the PHED committee. "Rather, the desired end is to introduce land uses (to wit, office space) . . . that downtown Wheaton currently lacks and which the market will not provide."

In a phone call, Sesker points out that in large-scale redevelopment projects, the best way to start is with the least challenging or expensive parts, like Lot 13. Those improvements will add value to the rest of the development, which makes the expensive parts more profitable to build later on, meaning B.F. Saul will require fewer subsidies.

The platform also has no direct benefit to the community by itself. "Unlike a school or a train, a platform does not teach any child to read and does not take anyone to work." Without those benefits, Sesker says, "If it is not generating revenue, then it probably is not a good investment."

"The County Council is the steward of public money," adds Leventhal. "If we're going to spend that money, it's reasonable to ask what this will do for taxpayers. We have to be very cautious about our decision, and we need much better analysis than what we've gotten."

Some still say offices just don't make sense in Wheaton. In 2009, a group of real estate and design experts commissioned by the Urban Land Institute to offer recommendations for redevelopment concluded that there is "no inherent reason" for offices to locate there:

The panel heard from a number of stakeholders that there is a desire for more office space in the CBD, in order to bring in greater daytime foot traffic . . . Wheaton is not well-positioned to attract development of, or users for, new large-scale office space. There are simply too many other office centers within the region that possess greater strengths, particularly in the near-term, where so much new office space has recently been built.

Instead, the panel suggested building apartments and townhomes to draw young professionals being priced out of Silver Spring, as well as chain stores and restaurants to Wheaton Plaza to "anchor" the downtown, and developing a small music venue to take advantage of its proximity to the renowned Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center.

On Lot 13, the panel proposed a town square and a smaller "2-3 story building" with shops and apartments. Like Sesker, they recommend waiting to build over the bus turnaround, as that site is the "most valuable" in downtown Wheaton and has "the potential for the greatest density." This vision, particularly its focus on music and entertainment, fits in with earlier proposals for Wheaton that were well-received by the community.

No matter what the county does, they should heed the ULI panel's warning on any development in Wheaton: "Wheaton's strengths, such as its eclectic retail mix, are also quite fragile, and could be irreparably harmed by any redevelopment projects that are ill-conceived or rushed. Thus, the panel recommends a gradual approach to redevelopment," they write. "An attempt to force a desired result . . . would not only fail, but would also end up undermining the unique identity that Wheaton already possesses."

We've been waiting for a new Wheaton for twenty years, so it's understandable some are impatient. But rushing into any project without a thorough understanding of its potential costs and benefits could destroy what people already like about the old Wheaton while limiting its future potential.

Between my parents, who listened to adult contemporary, and my friends who were getting into musical theatre, I was anxious to hear music I could actually relate to. Green Day was pretty easy to find: on the radio, on television, and in the halls of Blake High School, on t-shirts and patches sewn to jean jackets.

Their songs were fast and catchy, though as a preacher's kid, I was initially horrified by the foul language. But I'd spent plenty of mindlessly dull afternoons like the ones Billie Joe Armstrong described in "Longview," and was relieved to know someone else felt the same way.

Meanwhile, I'd never been to Washingtonian Center before the evening of the party. Walking felt like a punishment, something I did on those "Longview" afternoons when I didn't have a ride to any place more interesting. On those days, I'd walk 45 minutes to the shopping center closest to my parents' house, down streets with look-alike 1950's ranch houses and all while not seeing another person. It was boring, but slightly better than being at home.

At the Washingtonian Center, walking suddenly became something fun. We could walk from the movies to an artificial lake, then look in store windows on our way to dinner. And we could do all of this while being around and looking at other people. Not only was it better than sitting at home alone, but it was more fun than going to the mall.

I didn't question Washingtonian Center's authenticity at first, perhaps because I couldn't yet tell the difference between it and a traditional downtown. But I definitely wondered why Green Day called themselves a "punk band," which didn't seem to describe a group who played stadiums. Punks, I imagined, were more likely found in places like Phantasmagoria, the grungy and now-closed punk club in Wheaton.

But both of these experiences served as a sort of gateway to more "legitimate" pursuits. It's because of Green Day that I made friends with similar taste in music who would later introduce me to "actual" punk bands like Fugazi or invite me to see their band play shows in punk houses. (The webcomic Nothing Nice to Say jokes that Green Day fans get into real punk out of embarrassment for liking Green Day.)

And it's because of Washingtonian Center that I began to explore downtown Silver Spring before it became a new "town center" in its own right, and taking Metro into the District to wander around there. I've always been interested in architecture, but it's trips to places like Washingtonian Center which got me excited in the spaces between the buildings, which is why I'm currently in school for urban planning.

Much as I wouldn't have gotten into real punk if I hadn't listened to Green Day, I wouldn't be so excited about walking down real city streets had I not walked down a fake city street first. So for that reason, I'm not bothered when a new development is compared to a small town or an Italian piazza. Some of these places are like the Good Charlotte of urbanism, unable to be even a good fake downtown.

But like a good punk song that can teach you to see yourself and your world differently, I'm convinced that a walk down a good urban street can do the same, whether it's in a city or a suburb, old or new.

For more on the topic of punk rock and New Urbanism, check out this post from Scott Doyon comparing the two.

These restrictions make it difficult and expensive to run a bar, which encourages owners to locate in areas where there's already a bar scene with a guaranteed customer base. Hence, there are lots of bars in Bethesda and relatively few elsewhere. Yelp counts 25 bars in downtown Bethesda and just 9 bars in downtown Silver Spring, including Babe's Sports Bar, which closed earlier this month. And both pale in comparison to Clarendon, which with 44 bars has the highest number of any neighborhood outside the District.

This hurts bars in other parts of Montgomery County, who lose customers just by not being where all of the other bars are. It's especially hard for bars like Piratz Tavern. Though I've enjoyed myself thoroughly each time I went there, I can safely assume that not everyone wants to go to a bar and drink grog and sing sea shanties.

Piratz was a niche business, like a Korean restaurant or a record store, reliant on a small portion of the general public for their customer base. Niche businesses need a lot of people coming to the area to ensure that enough of them want what you're selling. That requires a high population density, like in the Akibahara "geek ghetto" in Tokyo, or a concentration of businesses serving a niche population, like Annandale, whose 900 businesses catering to Koreans make it a destination for Greater Washington's Korean community.

When you have a lot of people coming to your area, niche businesses can thrive. But in Silver Spring, where the bar scene and thus the pool of potential customers is very small, anything too unusual will get squeezed out.

Successful nightlife districts offer visitors lots of choices for dinner, drinks, and entertainment options. That's why Joe Englert purposely opened several unique venues at once along H Street NE in the District. He provided lots of reasons for lots of different kinds of people to come there, drumming up a substantial bar scene in a short period of time and helping to revitalize the neighborhood, which in turn produced more bars and restaurants.

Silver Spring could do the same if Montgomery County made it easier to open a bar here. Making the area a bigger nightlife destination could draw business to existing bars while encouraging new bars to open. It could also provide enough customers for niche bars like Piratz Tavern. Not only that, but it could also make the area safer, getting people on the streets at night when the sidewalks are normally empty.

Piratz Tavern didn't just fail because it was a pirate-themed bar. It failed because there aren't enough bars, pirate-themed or otherwise, to create a critical mass of bargoers in Silver Spring. Unless things change, the new Corporate Bar & Grill will struggle as well.

We know that dense cities are both environmentally better and dramatically more equitable places. Walkable neighborhoods are better than the suburbs for people with a wide range of incomes, and what happens in cities that don't grow is that they gentrify and poor people are pushed out. Trying to fight change makes you less sustainable and more unfair.

Sometimes, standing in front of bulldozers is the right thing to do. It's likely that Takoma Park wouldn't have become a sought-after place to live if it were carved up by highways. And sometimes it's harmful, like the efforts of some residents to block a housing development adjacent to the Takoma Metro station back in 2007.

Well-designed urban infill development in places like Old Town Takoma can get people out of their cars and bring customers to the area's struggling local businesses, which presumably are progressive ideals. Not allowing development to happen effectively enables all of the things progressives say they don't want, such as more driving, more gentrification, more suburban sprawl, and more destruction of farmland.

Greater density would in fact support progressive causes, according to Takoma Park resident Victor Reinoso. He says that there would be more progressive businesses, such as the TPSS Grocery Coop, and the ones that exist would get more business, if his neighbors didn't oppose greater density at every juncture.

Not all progress is bad. It's the mark of a true progressive when they can tell the difference.