The un-favored quarter: urbanism's next frontier

Development

The un-favored quarter: urbanism's next frontier

by Cavan Wilk • October 22, 2008 7:19 am

New development is coming to Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road, near the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station. Yesterday's Post, DCMud, and others wrote about the plans, which will feature more "affordable" and "market rate" apartments and condos.

Atlanta's Favored Quarter. From Cobb County Ride Sharing Program.

This is very important because it's a big step in development outside of the west-northwest "Favored Quarter" of our region, in an area that has seen little TOD. The Favored Quarter is the slice of a region with the highest property values. All post-suburban major American cities have them; in Baltimore it's north-northwest, in Pittsburgh it's south, etc. The largest, like New York, have multiple Favored Quarters.

It is no coincidence that when Montgomery County started TOD, it began in Bethesda, which is in the Favored Quarter. It was a good idea to experiment with a new idea in the world of real estate products in a place where the land was already highly valued. Only after TOD had demonstrated its success did the County try it in the revitalization of Silver Spring. At the time, both Silver Spring and Wheaton had been going through decades of decline because they weren't in the Favored Quarter during the suburbanization era. They are, however, "Favored Quarter Adjacent," and therefore less alien. Consequently, it was much easier to improve their reputations so that people could walk there and "feel safe." In many ways, the Fenton St. development was mainly about having an attraction for people to visit and become familiar with walking and enjoying Silver Spring.

The pattern is similar on the other side of the Potomac. Tysons, an economically vibrant edge city, and the wonderfully urban Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, are both in the Favored Quarter. Only after the success in North Arlington did Arlington County begin to think about revitalizing the Favored Quarter Adjacent Columbia Pike corridor. Likewise, in the District, first Georgetown and Dupont Circle revitalized, followed by Adams Morgan due to its proximity to the Favored Quarter. After that came U St. and Logan Circle, and most recently, Columbia Heights.

A common thread in each of these stories of urban revitalization is the appearance of new condos. Why did it start in the Favored Quarter and then radiate out, starting with those places closest to the Favored Quarter? Quite simply, the land was more expensive, so the developer could charge more for their products and make more money. There was less risk for them. As a consequence, this raised the average income in the area, creating more demand for amenities. Businesses then opened up, or existing ones thrived, meeting the new demand. During the housing bubble years of this decade, a developer could make a ton of money buying up old properties and redeveloping them into "luxury" condos for a hefty profit.

I personally don't find this to be a completely bad thing because it satisfied pent-up demand for real estate in a walkable place. However, there is the unintended, less ideal flip side: it homogenized a neighborhood with respect to income. A long term economically sustainable walkable urban place needs residents with a mix of incomes.

How does this all tie back to the new development at the Minnesota Ave. Metro? This project is the beginning of the next step in urban development and planning in our region. Just like the Metro showed that people will take quality mass transit, even if they own their own car; just like Bethesda and North Arlington showed that you can sell new real estate in a walkable place in the age of the subdivision; just like Silver Spring and Columbia Heights and U Street showed that many people would love to pay good money to live in an old urban place that's not in the Favored Quarter (but is Favored Quarter Adjacent)... this new market/affordable rate apartment/condo development at the Minnesota Avenue Metro has the potential to show developers that they can make a profit off urban housing that other than "luxury" condos and outside the Favored Quarter.

I hope the District and the developer make a deal that works out well for both parties. If the developer can turn a profit, many others will follow. That will be good for the District by attracting more residents. Those residents will then support the local businesses. The region will have another tool to create good urbanism in addition to what has already worked so well.

If we're lucky, the process will continue for decades. It took decades of suburbanization to develop the current land value distributions. Maybe in another 60 years, there will be no more Favored Quarter, just Washington and its walkable urban suburbs.

16 comments

Tags: affordable housing, DC, favored quarter, Minnesota Ave, TOD

Affordable housing clashes with the suburban mindset in Wheaton/Kensington (Dec 1, 2008)
The favored quarter, illustrated (Feb 14, 2008)
Wheaton's butterfly effect (Nov 10, 2008)
Urbanism in the public realm: the Silver Spring library (Nov 11, 2008)
More walkable urbanism is good for everyone (Jul 2, 2010)

Cavan Wilk became interested in the physical layout and economic systems of modern human settlements while working on his Master's in Financial Economics. His writing often focuses on the interactions between a place's form, its economic systems, and the experiences of those who live in them. He lives in downtown Silver Spring.

Comments
Add a comment »

As someone from Pittsburgh, I would disagree that the favored quarter is south. The South Hills enjoy the T (light rail) and have a few of the best school districts - but the very wealthy suburbanites live in Fox Chapel and Sewickley Heights, two northern suburbs. Within the city, the favored neighborhoods are east of downtown: Shady Side, Squirrel Hill, and a large part of Oakland.

by Dan on Oct 22, 2008 9:46 am • link • report

Sorry. My dad's family lives out there so I don't have as intimate a knowledge of the region since I've only visited and never lived there.

by Cavan on Oct 22, 2008 10:01 am • link • report

In most cities that developed in the 19th century or earlier, the favored quarter is upwind, generally to the west. Cities smelled bad before the spread of indoor plumbing, and urban development patterns tend to be very persistent.

by Ben Ross on Oct 22, 2008 10:38 am • link • report

Not only upwind, but, as many cities were built on the Piedmont, the west side was also "uphill" because, in addition to the smell, the water quality was comparitively much better.

by andy on Oct 22, 2008 11:18 am • link • report

Radical Cartography has some cool visuals to show the 'favored quarter' in various Metro areas:

http://www.radicalcartography.net/?cityincome

by Alex B. on Oct 22, 2008 11:19 am • link • report

I created a montage of those Radical Cartography maps here.

by David Alpert on Oct 22, 2008 11:42 am • link • report

Well, I think these developments show that developers can be used as a tool for good. All it takes the right incentives. As our experience has shown, the ground rules and incentives are laid down by government policy.

I'm trying to figure out why developers are currently so maligned in our culture when they were once celebrated. Perhaps it has to do with the culture of drivable environments? After all, in a car dependent place, adding more stuff often diminishes the attributes of suburbia that are attractive to its proponents. (the opposite of walkable places)

by Cavan on Oct 22, 2008 11:53 am • link • report

I'm with Dan on Pittsburgh: it looks like Pittsburgh is an example of "the 'donut' hypothesis". But if there are two primary models for metro areas, donut and Favored Quarter, it's pretty obvious that DC has a Favored Quarter. And incidentally, in those maps, what the heck is up with Portland? The pink line is so narrow, it's like they have a Favored Street!

by tomveil on Oct 22, 2008 4:05 pm • link • report

Dan, do you think that the hilly topography of Pittsburgh changes how its favored quarter works? Most cities have favored quarters. Then again, most are on somewhat flat terrain.

by Cavan on Oct 22, 2008 5:01 pm • link • report

This is very interesting and thought-provoking.

I would just quibble a little bit with your comparison of the Orange line area in Arlington and Bethesda *both* being in the favored quarter at the time TOD was decided on. The Ballston-Rosslyn area was in a decline in the 1970s, in part because Tysons was drawing away much of the mall business (and auto sales- lots of auto dealerships used to be there), also in part because it was on the "wrong" side of I-66. The TOD plans helped bring it back into the fold, but that and the Metro itself was probably the only thing that helped save it from being just another part of "South Arlington".

by mfs on Oct 22, 2008 11:39 pm • link • report

I agree with mfs. You can be excused, since you're a newcomer to the area, but if you had seen Wilson Blvd. before Metro construction began, you would hardly call it a favored quarter. It was dotted with crumbling strip malls, and the Ballston end was anchored by the dreadful Parkington shopping center, which was about as enticing as its name implied. Wilson Blvd in the 80s looked far worse than Lee Hwy. does today.

Arlington County planners saw Metrorail as an opportunity to revitalize a declining neighborhood at a time most other jurisdictions were merely calculating how big to build the Metro station parking garages. The original path of the Orange line was to be in I-66's median through all of Arlington. If I remember correctly, Arlington coughed up its own cash to pay for the extra cost of burying the line under Wilson Blvd.

by c5karl on Oct 23, 2008 12:15 pm • link • report

I still argue that it was in the favored quarter. From photos I've seen, and accounts from people who are older than I, it was a long declining suburban place that had once been the latest and greatest sprawl ring.

The experience with the expanding rings of suburbia have shown that places in the Favored Quarter can decline, too. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is southwest Ft. Worth, Texas. My best friend grew up in what was the "place to be" in the 1970's and '80s. However, by the beginning of this decade, his neighborhood had been long supplanted by places that are farther out, but still in the Favored Quarter. His old neighborhood is many years into decline.

That being said, I will cede that point since you were here and I was born in 1981 and moved to the region in 1999 to go to college so therefore did not see the Wilson Blvd. corridor in the 1970's

By that line of thought, North Arlington is not actually in the Favored Quarter, but Favored Quarter Adjacent like Wheaton and Silver Spring? I guessed it was in the Favored Quarter because it's between Tysons and Georgetown and they're both clearly in the Favored Quarter. My other reason for thinking that it's in the Favored Quarter is that it was able to revitalize in an urban form at a time when urban places were off-limits in the real estate market, similar the Bethesda. Either way, I think we can all agree that Arlington Co. really had excellent foresight. It's interesting to know about what came before my own experiences.

by Cavan on Oct 23, 2008 1:18 pm • link • report

Leinberger's point about the Favored Quarter is that it gets the most transportation and other beneficial infrastructure investment, making the area even more desirable and making it more favored. Not every part of the quarter has to be the swankiest area, but by being along the route to expensive suburbs, the inner areas get the investment anyway, making them more likely to be nice. And, hey, that's just what happened: to get to Fairfax, we put a rail line that through North Arlington, leading to economic growth.

by David Alpert on Oct 23, 2008 1:50 pm • link • report

Favored Quarter Adjacent sounds about right. The residential neighborhoods north of Wilson Blvd. did not decline as the Wilson Blvd. commercial strip did. Going back at least to my father's childhood in the 40s and 50s, the residential neighborhoods in North Arlington have always been very desirable (and more expensive than otherwise similar neighborhoods in South Arlington).

I hadn't thought about Parkington in a while. The only photo I could find via Google Image search was this one, which looks like a pre-construction artist's rendering (http://www.wakefieldclassof1970.com/uploads/Parkington.JPG). Wikipedia indicates they claimed to have the world's largest parking lot at that time. It was a near ghost-town at the time of the groundbreaking for its replacement (Ballston Common).

by c5karl on Oct 23, 2008 2:46 pm • link • report

Not to be nitpicky since we're just discussing definitions and semantics, but according to this definition of the Favored Quarter (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=611), North Arlington lies in the Favored Quarter. A place in the Favored Quarter can locally be in decline as was the case of the Wilson Blvd. corridor.

I argue that it's in the Favored Quarter because of the fact that it was on the way to what was the new spiffy Tysons Corner. I think that fact was a good part of the reason why its urban form revitalization was so successful at a time when few realtors, residential or commercial, would even touch urban form properties.

Think back to the '80s and '90s. Can you imagine such a project being such a smashing success on the Blue Line south/west of Old Town Alexandria at that time?

Anyway, semantics aside, thank you for the link to the photo. I think we can all agree that what is there now is a much more efficient and productive use of the land.

by Cavan on Oct 23, 2008 4:26 pm • link • report

Not to split hairs, but if the definition of favored quarter is the one you link to there- Rosslyn-Balston was not in the favored quarter in the 1970s/80s. It was a declining middle-class corridor that had many recently immigrated Latino and Asian families moving in. If you want a picture of what it looked like, think Seven Corners with less stores open and less dense development.

Also, the "favored quarter" argument ignores inner-ring suburban decline, which is a generalized pattern in many older metropolitan areas. Read "Confronting Suburban Decline" by Bill Lucy and David Phillips. Don't let the beauty of the theory stop you from examining the facts.

But the bottom line is this is all good for TOD- it shows that it can revitalize a place in a MAJOR way. Perhaps more than you meant it to demonstrate when you wrote the post.

by mfs on Oct 23, 2008 11:43 pm • link • report