ha ha. it's so sad it's funny.

by Binachi on Jun 26, 2008 10:00 am • link • report

This post, as many in the last month, i cannot see the image.

Years ago, i live in downtown Fairfax City. Loved it. Walkable, nice to look at.

I think city leaders there have not been thinking for many year. The conversion of North St and Main St to two-way has made their downtown less walkable and a nightmare to drive through.

They have a class-a bus system. They could do wonders in terms of moderate-to-high density mixed user development because of the buses and the easy connection to the Vienna/Fairfax Metro station. They could have more lively, walkable communities like their downtown, Reston Town Center, and Clarendon, with a tad of planning and foresight, both of which seem to have been lacking for some years now there.

by dcseain on Jun 26, 2008 10:24 am • link • report

dcseain: I think I've fixed that. Does it now work for you?

by David Alpert on Jun 26, 2008 10:30 am • link • report

Yes, in IE i can see them now, ty. I still stand by my paragraphs about walkability, transit, and development, above, though.

by dcseain on Jun 26, 2008 10:33 am • link • report

Fairfax City does have a remarkably good bus system for a small, suburban town. The CUE's two routes get more riders than all of ART's put together.

The rest... I won't comment on.

by BeyondDC on Jun 26, 2008 10:43 am • link • report

I disagree that the City has become less walkable with the new library and other projects. There are now many small shops, restaurants, bars, and other attractions within walking distance of the City core and they are easy to access by car. For 200 years, the City has been a crossroads so there is always going to have to be the balance of serving as a crossroads and as a destination. A

Also, I'm not sure the critism of these particular projects is well placed. Strip malls are not ideal, but anyone who's played SimCity (I imagine there's a few of you reading this blog) has probably picked up on the problem that keeping land in limbo costs your city and taxpayers money. And they serve a useful function of having a place for merchants to serve people. The new Five Guys, Robeks, and Starbucks are nice additions to Kamp Washington.

My bigger concern is that it's still a little dangerous to get to the new merchants on foot, which is something the city could do something about without interfering with property rights and that ultimately serves new urbanist goals as opposed to mere aesthetics.

Dense, nice areas--even Brooklyn and Cleveland Park--have strip malls. Some of the new urbanist advocacy that feeds into the criticism of new urbanism are arguments that talk about -mandating- particular urban forms, as opposed to what new urbanism started out as, simply ensuring that more pedestrian-scaled forms weren't -illegal- if someone wanted to build them.

by Alex on Jun 26, 2008 11:12 am • link • report

Alex: SimCity is an oversimplification and I've long critiqued its impact on people's thoughts about cities. Here, the government is made an affirmative decision to disallow condos and is now making one for the strip mall. It's not free market liberty at work, it's the government deciding to build this urban form.

And unlike in SimCity, you can't just bulldoze the block for $1 per square when you want something better. Fairfax will be stuck with this for decades.

by David Alpert on Jun 26, 2008 11:26 am • link • report

True, there are always the specifics of particular projects for approval. Admittedly there's not a -purely- market choice here, but even new urbanist form-based codes recognize scale and other considerations. IIRC, the condo proposed would have been out of scale here, pedestrian or otherwise.

Regarding the 'stuck with for decades' point--it is much easier for a single commercial developer to change his use than a condo with a hundred or so private owners. This seems, to me, to be the best choice to keep property revenue-generating while still keeping many options open as the Fairfax Boulevard plan takes shape.

by Alex on Jun 26, 2008 11:41 am • link • report

that strip mall in Cleveland Park is decades old. If it were proposed today there is no way it would be the single story structure it is. Using 'Sam's Park & Shop' as an example for a newly proposed strip mall is, I don't know, disingenuous? I mean c'mon. Aren't we allowed to use all the accumulated knowledge and changes that have occurred since 'Sam's' was built? How can anything described as "easy to get to by car" and "dangerous to get to by walking" be a project that incorporates that knowledge and considers those changes? It's just the same-old-same-old exacerbating the problems created by the ubiquitous "easy to drive; dangerous to walk" enviroment we've built in the last 50 years.

by Bianchi on Jun 26, 2008 11:59 am • link • report

Approving a strip mall is one thing. Calling it a "work of art" is rather another, I think.

The specifics of this case aside, as long as suburban leaders continue to think of strip malls as desirable (so long as they're made of brick), strip malls is what they will get.

by anon on Jun 26, 2008 12:18 pm • link • report

We can certainly learn from mistakes. It's which is the greater mistake that I'm noting here. Urban renewal of the 50's and 60's that then fell out of fashion was premised on wholesale rather than incremental changes. My point was that strip malls have been around for decades, even in nice dense locations, and there are probably functional as well as aesthetic reasons for that (the Park and Shop being a historic landmark, is probably both--and I doubt the residents of Cleveland Park would permit it to be replaced by a much larger structure).

I like the blog and the posts here, but what I saw in the post and the comments is that there seems to be a belief that existing communities can just make the West Village appear out of whole cloth rather than to let things grow more organically as time progresses. That's precisely one of the big mistakes of urban renewal of the postwar period.

In "learning from mistakes" the most critical is probably to proceed carefully in a way that includes practical considerations and keeping options open for land that sits empty. The tax revenue from the strip mall can be used to improve the sidewalks to make the mall walkable and add other improvements making more urban developments sensible and viable as time goes on.

What happened here seems to be, on a smaller scale, the approach taken by Alexandria with Potomac Yards, which put big box retail in place--hardly Alexandria's aesthetic--but that provides valuable revenue for the local government and shopping from the residents (including outside the jurisdiction) as the city grows more organically around it and other plans proceed (including for Metro and other projects).

by Alex on Jun 26, 2008 1:00 pm • link • report

Is "dangerous to walk to" a practical consideration? How difficult is it to include "walk to it" as one of the criteria? Insisting on this one criterium(sp?) IS an incremental change.

by Bianchi on Jun 26, 2008 1:37 pm • link • report

Alex: Strip malls do much more harm than good. They bring in some tax revenue, but they also encourage driving over walking. See my post on the cycle of induced demand. Fairfax is extending its entrenchment as a non-walkable place that promotes driving. Each piece advances the whole.

Plus, these days developers know many better ways to design commercial areas. They can put stores along the street and parking behind, for example, which is at least a start.

The park-and-shop is one of DC's most unfortunate urbanism mistakes and should never be considered an example to emulate.

by David Alpert on Jun 26, 2008 2:27 pm • link • report

David: I think maybe I'm not explaining my point adequately. I'm not saying Fairfax should "emulate" the Park and Shop. I'm just citing it as historical evidence that strip malls serve a function, and have, for some time. I'm also saying that these forms aren't -necessarily- incompatible with developing urbanism, especially if the alterantive is to leave a drain on city coffers that could provide a source for revenue needed to provide civic ameneties conducive to urbanism.

There is a comprehensive Fairfax Boulevard plan that was developed after a series of charettes that lays out a long-term vision for greater urbanism through the city. But in the meantime, the City's tax base also needs development to reach many of the goals in the plan.

Bianchi: I'm confused by your comment but maybe we're in agreement. Taking the incremental step of improving accessibility around new strip developments--perhaps with the new tax revenue generated from the new development--is precisely the good first step I was thinking of. My initial comment was to contrast the post's critique with the point that planting a pedestrian-oriented development first that depends on pedestrians making suicidal sprints across Route 50 is impractical and feeds criticisms of new urbanism; permitting a development compatible with current infrastructure and then improving infrastructure around it seems to me a logical strategy overlooked by the post and some comments.

by Alex on Jun 26, 2008 3:26 pm • link • report

'criterion'

by Bianchi on Jun 26, 2008 3:33 pm • link • report

When Sam's was built it was an anomaly. That's why its considered, by some, valuable historically. But Sam's was built in a neighborhood that was/is already a pedestrian dominant area serviced by streetcars/metro and is not comparable to yet another stripmall in Faifax. The only historical impact Sam's and other stripmalls have served over the last 50 years is to fuel the momemtum towards the car-oriented-dangerous-to-walk built environment with which we now struggle to make incremental changes upon. Building something 50 years hence that essentially looks exactly like Sam's - without insisting BEFORE it's built that some of those incremental changes be included, such as making it pedestrian friendly, perpetuates the mistakes of the last 50 years. The incremental changes have to start somewhere. Why not now, with this thing? Including that type of change will be a very small break from the status quo and will be incentive for more changes in that direction. Assuming the changes will happen afterward or sometime in the future is...I don't know what it is. It's not a practical consideration for effecting change.

by Bianchi on Jun 26, 2008 4:13 pm • link • report