Comments on The un-favored quarter: urbanism's next frontier - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by mfs

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:43:07 EDT

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.

Comment by Cavan

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:26:11 EDT

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.

Comment by c5karl

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:46:16 EDT

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).

Comment by David Alpert

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:50:52 EDT

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.

Comment by Cavan

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:18:49 EDT

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.

Comment by c5karl

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:15:16 EDT

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.

Comment by mfs

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:39:33 EDT

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".

Comment by Cavan

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:01:04 EDT

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.

Comment by tomveil

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:05:19 EDT

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!

Comment by Cavan

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:53:56 EDT

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)

Comment by David Alpert

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:42:01 EDT

I created a montage of those Radical Cartography maps here.

Comment by Alex B.

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:19:50 EDT

Radical Cartography has some cool visuals to show the 'favored quarter' in various Metro areas: http://www.radicalcartography.net/?cityincome

Comment by andy

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:18:37 EDT

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.

Comment by Ben Ross

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:38:21 EDT

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.

Comment by Cavan

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:01:23 EDT

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.

Comment by Dan

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:46:40 EDT

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.