Posts about Tom Davis

Development

The era of big commute is over

by David Alpert   •   August 5, 2008 1:25 pm

The "end of the exurbs" trend narrative story has hit the Washington Post front page, with a very good article by Eric ("War on Drivers") Weiss. As we well know, families just aren't moving out to the fringe of the metropolitan area for cheap housing yet grueling commutes; "the days of building giant houses on former soybean fields on the outer fringes of metropolitan areas are over."

Weiss not only identifies the trend but delves into the causes, and gets them right:

Since the end of World War II, government policy has funded and encouraged the suburban lifestyle, subsidizing highways while starving mass transit... Federal spending is about 4 to 1 in favor of highways over transit. Today, more than 99 percent of the trips taken by U.S. residents are in cars or some other non-transit vehicle, largely as a result of decades of such unbalanced spending.

And Fairfax, at least, is ready to change at places like Tysons:

"We need to change the patterns of development," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. "We have to move to a new transit-oriented development paradigm and concentrate development and avoid the sprawl that we've allowed in the past and undo some of the environmental damage."

He pointed to nearby Arlington County and its Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, alive with pedestrians and dense housing development. "We actually know it works," Connolly said.

Fortunately for the region, Connolly is very likely going to be Northern Virginia's next new Congressman, replacing retiring Republican Tom Davis. While he championed the Dulles Corridor Metrorail project, Davis also blocked TOD around Vienna for political reasons.

Others quoted in the article think suburbs will remain largely the same, but with jobs moving closer to the people. Ryan Avent agrees, but points out that jobs can only get so much closer when people live far apart.

Suburbs are partly a product of some people's desire for big houses and yards, and partly a product of government spending priorities making sprawl more economically attractive than walkable neighborhoods. High gas prices don't mean the end of suburbs, but they have ended the bias in their favor. The pendulum is already swinging back. The only question is how far.

(Thanks to Andrew and Ken who both sent me the article.)

Politics

Which came first, the city or the liberal?

by David Alpert   •   July 4, 2005 8:44 pm

Citizens in urban areas disproportionately support Democrats, and citizens in exurban areas - the sprawl far away from urban centers - generally support Republicans. Rich or poor, even controlling for race and other factors, the cities are Blue and the exurbs Red. Is this because living in a diverse, dense community forces individuals to value policies that help all citizens, while those in homogeneous areas whose only contact with strangers is through cursing at them in traffic seek to evade responsibility for their fellow human beings? Or is it just that liberals are more likely to enjoy cities for their culture and their activity and choose to live there, and conservatives generally tend to prefer low density living?

In other words, does the urban environment breed progressivism, or simply attract that which already exists?

Outside Washington, DC, the local community and a developer are working together to create high density housing and some office space right next to the Vienna metro stop in suburban Virginia, designed to enable residents and workers to avoid having to commute by car. Given the skyrocketing prices in Eastern urban centers including Washington due to high demand, and the growing problem of traffic in the region, creating more of what people want - walkable, transit-oriented communities - is a clear win.

But the area Congressman opposes the plan, reportedly due to its likelihood to attract Democrats. In the last election the Congressman, Thomas M. Davis III, lost for the first time one nearby precinct, next to the Dunn Loring Metro station, where a similar development now exists. These new condos surely haven't changed anyone's political views on their own, but is the Congressman just afraid of attracting some existing Democrats into his district, or is he more concerned that development which facilitates cultural participation at the expense of profligate gas guzzling will erode support for his world view in the long run?

If there is any truth to the thesis that the form of a community influences its members, then in planning for the long run progressives should promote as widely as possible the expansion of our urban cities and the evolution toward a more livable environment of those cities, especially throughout the South and Midwest, which lack a vibrant downtown today.