Posts about Public Spaces

Residents in these camps concerned about development at the site have organized two groups, Friends of McMillan Park and Sustainable McMillan. The groups' leaders claim that Envision McMillan virtually ignored the ideas community members presented in the various public listening sessions.

In fact, the team has significantly altered the plan based on community feedback. It now has much more open space, with 13.55 acres overall, including a 4-acre central park and 8 acres of large, public, open spaces. The team also added a grocery store, a library and a community center.

The plan mixes preservation and growth

Envision McMillan comprises 9 architecture, design, landscape architecture, and consulting firms selected as the site's developer by the DC Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The District government bought the site from the federal government in 1987 and has sought to develop it ever since.

The majority of the existing above-ground structures on the site would be retained and repurposed. The plan calls for preserving more than one of the underground sand filtration cells for visitors to explore. The historic McMillan Fountain, currently in storage at the adjacent federally-owned McMillan Reservoir, would sit in a prominent location in a public plaza on the site.

The southern row of cylindrical sand silos would form the border between the project's central park and a cluster of row houses, which would match the architecture of the surrounding neighborhood. Stormwater runoff from the site would be completely captured on site by using state-of-the-art runoff management techniques.

Envision McMillan seeks to draw a grocery store and an eclectic mix of local retailers. Developers hope to create approximately 4,000 jobs at all levels as part of new healthcare office space on the northern end (adjacent to the VA hospital and Washington Hospital Center).

Additionally, the city plans to sponsor job-training programs to help District residents qualify for these jobs. 100 housing units will be designated as "affordable senior housing," and a mix of workforce and market-rate housing will be available throughout the site.

The team responds to community concerns

The next step for Envision McMillan and project supporters is to win the public-relations battle by convincing residents of the area, and the entire city, that the current plans represent the most appropriate balance of competing community needs and desires.

Traffic has been a central area of concern for nearby residents. First Street NW, in particular, is often bumper-to-bumper at rush hours between Michigan and New York Avenues, and Bloomingdale residents fear this will get worse once new homes, offices, and shops open up at McMillan. Envision McMillan analyzed current traffic to help create a plan to efficiently move people to and from the site, both by car and by other modes.

The study showed that there are no safe pedestrian crossings of North Capitol Street between Michigan Avenue and Channing Street. The restrictions on left turns from North Capitol onto Michigan from both directions cause more traffic to flow onto neighborhood streets. Cut-through traffic also overtaxes the alleys in the neighboring Stronghold neighborhood.

Envision McMillan's traffic plan calls for building 2 new through streets across the site from North Capitol to First NW, reducing traffic flow on existing neighborhood streets. It also recommends 2 new signalized intersections along North Capitol, and widening the North Capitol and Michigan Avenue intersection. Almost all of the parking on the site would be below ground.

But perhaps more importantly, the plan would enhance access to the site by non-automobile modes, thereby reducing the number of cars that will have to move through the surrounding neighborhoods. It proposes a transit hub on the north end with frequent Circulator buses connecting to the Brookland Metro station, a hiker-biker trail along North Capitol for the length of the site, several new sidewalks, and two Capital Bikeshare stations on the site—one near the grocery store and one in the middle of the mixed-use medical office/retail complex.

Yes, the surrounding neighborhood will feel growing pains as new residents, shoppers, and medical clinic patients move in. But maintaining the site as it is, empty and off-limits to the public, benefits nobody.

The only viable alternative to the status quo is some form of development. Putting this residential and business development in an urban neighborhood where people can take advantage of existing infrastructure at modest incremental cost makes the most economic and environmental sense. The long-term benefits to the region of developing the site in a conscientious way far outweigh the short-term costs.

Envision McMillan has proposed a plan for intelligent development and adapted it around reasonable concerns from the community. The plan will create a desirable place to live, work, and shop that retains both the character of the neighborhood and the uniqueness of this historic site.

Here's my approach. I think Wheaton's downtown is sorely missing a public place to go and just spend time. I know, for example, that if I go to Downtown Silver Spring, Bethesda or Rockville, I can spend several hours with my family without having to move the car. I can pick a destination—and the afternoon starts there. There will be other people moving about. I may run into friends. I can eat, shop at a market or in one of the stores. My kids can play at a fountain or other structure and I can knock off an errand.

Wheaton has many businesses to support this but it lacks a central place where people can gather. It lacks an Ellsworth Drive or Bethesda Row—not necessarily a town square, although it could be, but a place with a compelling and memorable identity that has been built and designed for people.

Wheaton's core already has many great shops. Some of my favorites there on Triangle Lane include Marchones, where I buy the best deli sandwiches, Showcase Aquarium, and one of the region's coolest stores, the Toy Exchange, which has vintage toys, from Star Wars figures to Lionel trains. In the surrounding blocks, there are notable restaurants such as Pho Hiep Hoa (where I discovered Pho), Nava Thai, Full Key, Hollywood East, Ren's Ramen, Caramelo Bakery (with the most spectacular saltenas), and the list goes on.

But what Wheaton does not have is a connecting space to weave the shops, and its identity, together. Typically I have to park at one restaurant and then get back in the car to drive to another location, which is a real pain with kids. I end up spending additional money somewhere else.

In my view, Silver Spring is a success not because of any particular office building in the area, but because of the public space that was created and the sense of identity it fostered. People just love going there.

Wheaton could have that, too. Wheaton has plenty of potential customers in the surrounding neighborhoods, but I suspect that many of them prefer to go out to other destinations that have more street life. They spend their money somewhere else, too.

It is hard to create street life in a parking lot, which is what we currently use as a big space at the center of the urban core.

If we are going to make Wheaton a real destination with appeal to families, teens, singles and everyone, we should start by building an urban park.

What is an urban park? My favorite is the spectacular Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, where I've spent hours soaking in the city. While I don't think we can go that far, we do have nearly $42 million proposed in the capital budget for Wheaton redevelopment.

We also need to remake Triangle Lane, pictured below, so that not only cars and delivery trucks can access the area but people can walk around in an enriching environment. We could have a wider storefront sidewalk for businesses and customers, pavers, lamps, benches and trees. Triangle Lane is, after all, "Wheaton Row."

Finally, reaching a little further out into the orbit of the urban core, we should get the new Wheaton Library and Recreation Center built as fast as possible. A quality community amenity like that will go a long way to getting residents in the surrounding area even more engaged in their own local community, and it may help attract new, higher income residents to the area.

Wheaton certainly needs new office workers to support the businesses, and the county needs to relocate agencies in order to reduce leasing costs. Fortunately, there are many places in Wheaton to locate new office buildings. We could even build a tall tower where the Mid-County Regional center is today.

We will see what the best approach is, but I am dead set against any construction impact that will wipe out the businesses on Triangle Lane. If these businesses have their parking removed during many years of construction, I am worried that many of them may not survive. There is a possibility that this approach will only end up sterilizing the small business ecosystem that makes Wheaton unique.

Wheaton is different, and we should take a different approach to economic development there. Don't wipe the businesses out and then build new. Nurture the core and let it grow organically. Make it a destination, and the people will come.

Whether because of its lefty residents or proximity to the District, Montgomery County has long had a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) culture, from Silver Spring's past as a skating mecca to our small punk scene. These things set our community apart, give us a common identity, and overall make this a much cooler place to live.

But no matter where you are in Montgomery County, kids can't do or make anything when they don't have places for to go and community leaders who are either disinterested or openly hostile towards their needs. The difficulty that the underage Black Sparks had in securing a venue for their shows is just one part of a bigger problem.

I was particularly drawn to quotes from Kevin Erickson, director of the All Ages Movement Project, a nationwide organization that encourages the creation of spaces where young people can make music. He certainly gets the connection between giving kids something to do and having a more interesting community:

"If a city is interested in making their community more livable and interesting and creatively vibrant for young people," says Erickson. "One thing they can do is get out of the way and eliminate some of the regulatory barriers that can hinder young people from participating in culture or running a space . . . Once we start to recognize young people's creative contributions, it can be a step toward treating them as humans in the rest of civic life."

None of this says that Montgomery County is such a terrible place to be as a young artist. We've got organizations like the Gandhi Brigade that teaches young people to make films and other media, along with places like Bach to Rock and the School of Rock, which are discussed in the City Paper article. And next door in the District there are groups like Positive Force that push for youth empowerment and expression through events like the yearly Positive Youth Fest.

That said, we could do more to promote DIY culture. The best place to start is by providing venues where kids can hang out, from organized events like Councilmember Nancy Navarro's "youth cafés," to unprogrammed spaces like Veterans' Plaza in downtown Silver Spring. We could also make it easier to reserve space in public buildings for concerts and other events, particularly the Fillmore, which is supposed to be available for community use.

And it would've helped if the county hadn't just condemned the Corpse Fortress, a Silver Spring punk house that's existed under various names over the past decade, and instead given its residents a chance to bring the building up to code first.

Kids making music they're passionate about isn't just good for them. It makes our community a better and more unique place, and we should encourage it whenever possible.

Each design team is charged with coming up with innovative ways to revitalize 3 zones: Constitution Gardens (the area containing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial), the area encompassing the base of the Washington Monument and Sylvan Theater, and Union Square (the Mall's eastern third). The winners of the 8-month competition, now in its final stage, will be announced in a ceremony on May 3. A group of 12 finalists has been selected, 4 for each section.

Three individuals with extensive public space design experience, though not all planners or designers by profession, shared their insights as to what makes a great public space in a January 11 panel talk at the National Archives. They agreed that great spaces must be able to sustain a high level of use over time yet retain the surrounding community's sense of ownership and stewardship.

The challenge at the heart of the treatment of the Mall is that it must be a national symbol, a green space for area residents, and the locus of expressions of the national public mood (celebrations, remembrances, protests) all at the same time. Theaster Gates, a Chicago-based artist and cultural developer, spoke eloquently to this conflict: "America is a very complex place with lots of different people and lots of different interests that would like to see themselves present on the Mall."

An "evolving monument," Gates said, isn't a permanent manifestation of one historical person or event, but rather a constant symbol of the community's mood that is "a carrier of whatever the moment is" and "accumulate[s] multiple stories." Public art or architecture that changes with the times would carry more meaning for people than a statue of, for example, Civil War commander John Logan, whose significance is lost on most who pass through Logan Circle.

The idea of public parks as staging grounds for cultural movements has been tested by the presence of Occupy DC in the city's central public squares. Gates insisted that there is no way to plan a space to accommodate certain types of First Amendment expression, as the very act of planning for them takes away their spontaneity, and thus much of their power.

"No matter how much planning and designing we do, people have the ability to remake spaces," Gates said, as Occupy has done. "Public space has to be able to cradle movements," added Tupper Thomas. "Spaces are defined by how people choose to use them. I don't think you can design niches for resistance," said John Bela.

Three specific precedents for innovations in public parks were discussed: the restoration of Brooklyn's Prospect Park as a popular gathering place, the transformation of Manhattan's High Line from an elevated railroad to a mile-long green space, and the annual observance of Park[ing] Day when on-street parking spaces are turned into temporary parks.

30 years ago, Prospect Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead (whose hand is also seen in parts of the Mall, Rock Creek Park, and on Gallaudet University's campus), had become "totally unused" because people were afraid to go on. Tupper Thomas's Prospect Park Alliance engaged in a grassroots dialogue, beginning with door-to-door canvassing, with the goal of getting Brooklynites, some of the country's most diverse citizenry, to love the park again. The park now has more visitors than it can handle, and the Alliance's new challenge is raising enough money to maintain it.

Park[ing] Day mastermind John Bela of San Francisco's Rebar Art and Design Studio spoke to the idea of planning for the sustainability of public spaces as a constantly evolving process. Park[ing] Day relies on a how-to manual with a few guidelines, but beyond that each group can make what they want of it. The most important aspect of the temporary parks, however, is that they have a truly public feel, and are not just extensions of the commercial spaces in front of which many of them are created.

Manhattan's High Line has accelerated the surrounding neighborhood's redevelopment and, because of this, has sparked the interest of other cities seeking to emulate it.

The fact that it took two entrepreneurs to take on the task of remaking the High Line, with initially no help from the city bureaucracy, shows that the traditional planning process is broken, said Bela. Consultants and activists with their own agendas, he noted, too often come to dominate "open" planning processes, essentially drowning out other community voices. To counter this tendency, planners should offer many affected people different levels of engagement in a process to give them more ownership.

It is good that cities are seeking to be noticed for good public spaces, added Gates, but each city should decide what kind of re-use of abandoned urban infrastructure is appropriate to its own context. Thomas cautioned those seeking to emulate the High Line to pay as much attention to community development as to economic development.

"Cities are being determined by what the public realm is," Trust for the National Mall President Caroline Cunningham summarized. In the Mall's case, local residents' desires for a certain type of public realm must be balanced with the nation's need for a place that is "both grand and personal" and evokes the country's history and future, while allowing the people to help shape that future through collective action.

More activity on the sidewalk is a good thing. We want it. Sidewalk activity is what makes for good cities.

To be fair, there are occasional places where adding a walk-up window would be troublesome. Especially narrow sidewalks that already have especially heavy pedestrian traffic, for example. A hypothetical walk-up window at the corner of Wisconsin and M Street might get in the way, and ultimately harm walkability by inconveniencing too many other people. That's a legitimate concern.

But 99.9% of the time, walk-up windows are great. The proposed walk-up macaron shop in Georgetown is way up Wisconsin Avenue, well north of the busiest area, on a stretch of sidewalk with plenty of room for existing shops to put out clothes racks and wicker furniture. It should be approved.

And hopefully there will be even more proposals in the future for these great features of urbanism.

Across the city, newspaper boxes cluster together in numbers easily reaching into the double digits in a single location. The clusters reflect the diversity of locally-available publications, ranging from the Epoch Times and Washington City Paper to USA Today, El Tiempo Latino, and the Washington Blade. As a means of distribution, newspaper boxes are critical to any publication. But when jumbled together haphazardly in nearly every corner of the city, are they adding to or detracting from the streetscape?

An unscientific canvas of downtown shows that boxes are distributed indiscriminately, sometimes on the corner while other times curbside in the middle of the street. Large concentrations are bunched outside most Metro stations. In upper Northwest and parts of Capitol Hill, they are frequently lined up outside of coffee shops. Elsewhere throughout the city, they hover near bus stops, frequently commandeered as additional ad hoc seating.

There are nearly 30 boxes outside of the Metro Center entrance at 12th & G. At least three metal boxes, Our Town, Falls Church Free Press, and the Rock Creek Free Press, appear to be abandoned. A quick check of Rock Creek Free Press's website confirms, "The September 2011 edition will be our last. After 5 years, 50 issues, the Rock Creek Free Press has printed its final edition." Their boxes outside of Metro Center and Gallery-Place entrances, however, remain.

Only one block down the street at the 13th & G Metro Center entrance, there are over 30 boxes, a dozen battered and vacant. From the looks of it, the box for Our Town is being used as makeshift storage locker for a homeless person's blanket, rather than newspapers.

Who is responsible for newspaper boxes?

Stocking or not stocking boxes is an independent decision by each publisher, but an inactive newspaper box has a similar effect on public space, albeit on a smaller scale, as that of a vacant storefront. In its own way, a vacant box is representative of physical and intellectual blight.

Earlier this year, Arl Now documented two of the usual suspects in vacant boxes: the publications Apartment Showcase and For Rent. In March, Prince of Petworth pondered who regulates boxes.

While DDOT's Public Space Policy Division has jurisdiction to regulate the abandoned boxes, removing the boxes from the streets clearly isn't very high on the city's priority list. "Just look around," said a man standing next to the line of boxes bordering the street at the 7th & F NW entrance to the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station.

Boxes at Metro stations fall under WMATA's jurisdiction, beyond DDOT's reach. If the buildup of years-derelict boxes outside many stations is any indication, Metro isn't clamoring to clear things out, either.

Vacant boxes in Anacostia

Although there are 5 boxes for The Washington Post and a solitary box for The Washington Times outside the Anacostia Metro, it has been weeks if not months, maybe a year or more, since they have been stocked, according to my independent observations and those of many morning commuters.

Up and down MLK and Good Hope Road, sometimes across the street from each other, are the omnipresent yellow stand-up boxes of The Express. The boxes are usually empty, with bundles of the paper instead resting on the front doorsteps of buildings around the neighborhood.

At 14th & Good Hope Road, outside of the Anacostia Warehouse Market, a Washington Post box is vacant and chained shut. "I don't know how long it's been there, but it's probably close to whenever the paper started," said Earl Johns, an Anacostia resident as he entered the market. As an indefinite indication of its age, the daily paper is priced at a quarter.

What to do about vacant boxes

Given their negative influence on the urban fabric, it is worthwhile to explore potential ways to address abandoned boxes. In other cities, people have gotten creative. There have been examples of boxes serving as flower pots for guerrilla gardeners. Some have hosted small "parties"; others have featured benign street art dioramas.

In Boston, two friends launched an experiment in "direct reciprocity" by making one abandoned box a 24-hour dropbox that dictated, "1. Leave an item; 2. Take an Item; and 3. Don't be a Stranger." People have even suggested using old boxes as grills. In Toronto an arts organization, the 24 Hour Box Guerrilla Art Makeover Project, has taken up the cause of beautifying grimy boxes.

On New York City's Upper East Side a long-standing community group has worked with the city for years to remove abandoned "newsracks" from cluttered sidewalks. In 2004, New York enacted a law revising existing regulations of newsracks. In DC, no such laws appear to be on the books, and if they are, they are not enforced.

While many communities in the city suffer from structural unemployment and smothering rates of illiteracy, it is understandable the dumping of newspaper boxes has been ignored.

Of course, some see the boxes as an important part of the landscape. According to one Howard University student, "They make the outside of the metro more colorful. Without the boxes you'd be bored."

Food trucks have become popular and ubiquitous in the city, largely because of the feeling of relationship they engender. Wouldn't newsstands on the streets do the same for us cerebrally?

In DC, to pick up a copy of your favorite magazine or an out-of-town newspaper, you have to step through a door. What if DC had newsstands like other cities and you could grab a magazine on the run?

Newsstands "forcefully demonstrate that New York, unlike cities whose streets have lost their vitality to car culture, still teems with on-the-run pedestrians," according to the New York Times.

According to the same article, until 2003 newsstand operators owned their stands and paid the city $1,000 for two-year licenses. Then the city enacted Local Law 64, "which required owners to give up their stands but allowed them to operate city-owned structures at no cost." Not surprisingly, newsstands, the intellective apotheoses of city sidewalks, began to vanish.

The momentary relief newsstands can bring to the daily grind of DC life was wistfully immortalized in 1992's A Few Good Men. Tom Cruise's character, Daniel Kaffee, gets up with Luther, who runs a local newsstand, several times throughout the movie to match wits and exchange clichés. One memorable scene:

Kaffee: How's it goin', Luther?
Luther: Another day, another dollar, captain.
Kaffee: You gotta play 'em as they lay, Luther.
Luther: What comes around, goes around, you know what I'm sayin'.
Kaffee: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Luther: Hey, if you got your health, you got everything.
Kaffee: Love makes the world go round. I'll see you tomorrow, Luther.

As a unique commercial marker paying homage to the past heydays of newspaper boys and the ongoing intellectual gentrification of the city, newsstands could add authenticity by invigorating DC's public streets.

This year, I spent my Turkey Day in Istanbul. I stayed a little over a week, but I don't think it took me more than a few hours of sightseeing to recognize how very different this metropolis is from Washington. One of the most notable differences I came across is how Turks conceive of and plan around their national monuments.

While DC fights to keep the National Mall a memorial unto itself, even Istanbul's oldest neighborhoods (2,000+ years of use) integrate historical treasures and modern establishments with great success.

In the world of cities, Istanbul is nothing short of a heavyweight. With an estimated population of over 14 million residents (as high as 17 million by some counts) and about 2,500 years worth of history under its belt, the metropolis is one the most impressive and diverse in the world.

Today, the megacity calls Turkey its home and it is, at least in legal terms, a secular community. Since its humble beginnings around 600 BC, however, Istanbul has played host to a number of empires, religions and cultures.

With so much history and so much civilization to account for, I expected to find a city that kept is cultural treasures under lock-and-key. But one walk through Old Town—the most ancient part of the metropolis, and the home to vast majority of Istanbul's sites, including the Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace—proved my assumptions entirely wrong.

Instead, what I found was a bustling neighborhood that played host to a myriad of restaurants, shops, park areas, bike share stations, street vendors, locals, and tourists. And, it just happened to include one of the Seven Wonders of the World and a slew of other notable historical sites. No big deal.

As I snacked on a kebab at the edge of the 1,600 year old Hippodrome of Constantinople, I couldn't help but wonder how different the area would be if the US National Park Service were in charge.

Here's my best guess.

If we were to judge by the state of affairs on the Mall today, that would be it for the cafés and most of the street vendors. No more private art galleries and no more fruit stands. Few locals and fewer hotels. Bike share stations? Probably not. And, definitely no kebabs.

Last year, I volunteered regularly for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Visitor Services representative. It was a fantastic opportunity to interact with tourists visiting the museum, and often our capital, and sometimes a city of any kind, for the first time.

It was my job to answer their questions and point them in the right direction. Most of the time, I really enjoyed the work. There were only two questions I dreaded: 1) "Can you recommend a few good restaurants nearby?" and 2) "Where can I buy some sunscreen (or band aids or a calling card or a pair of socks or a pack of cigarettes)?"

These are reasonable questions with no reasonable answers. I hated being the bearer of bad news, especially when visitors with a laudable moral consciousness were concerned. Unfortunately, the reality is—and was—that aside from the USHMM café, there are no restaurants near the museum, and the closest convenience store is a hike, as well.

Instead of leaving the look-but-don't-touch policing to the multitude of museums that flank the Mall, the National Park Service enforces a set of policies that turn the entire space into an immaculately preserved dead zone.

Of course, to be fair, the locked-down, mile-long strip of federal buildings surrounding the area doesn't help matters any when it comes to creating a friendly, mixed-use space. But, at the very least, these structures are inaccessible to the public for reasons of security, and they are places of work. The Mall, on the other hand, is a place of recreation, and I pick on it, because there are no legitimate obstacles to opening it up for classy, organic, well-planned commercial development.

If the National Park Service ever considers the idea, Istanbul's Old Town is a perfect case study for how things may go right. While every monument, mosque, obelisk, and museum has its own space, the areas in between are filled with modern conveniences, such as restaurants, shops, and street vendors.

Istanbul has gone through many transformations, but the most beloved and impressive structures remain respected and intact, even after all these years. Indeed, perhaps it is because of its age, rather than in spite of it, that the city has done such a great job of integrating the old with the new. If nothing has undone the Hagia Sophia yet, it's unlikely that a hookah bar and a couple of carpet stores will suddenly get the job done.

Our Mall and the monuments on it are much, much younger, but we can learn from older cities and use their experience to our advantage. We ought to be confident in the fact that our national treasures are impressive, inspiring and important. And we shouldn't tiptoe around them just to make sure no one forgets it.

It's nice to think that we can preserve every last square inch of our capital for our grandchildren's grandchildren just as it exists today, but it's neither smart nor sustainable.

Plus, if my grandchildren's grandchildren are anything like me, I'm sure they'll be much more interested in enjoying a beer at a Mall-side café with a clear view of Mr. Lincoln than running back and forth across a pristine, treeless lawn in search of Advil and SPF 6,000 sunscreen. Maybe they'll dig kebabs, too.

What do teenagers need? The ability to get around without a driver's license, for starters. A 15-year-old who can get around town on foot, on transit, or by bike or skateboard isn't just a convenience for their parents, who don't have to shuttle them around after school. They're given the tools for their own independence and self-discovery.

So the ideal place for a teenager is probably a neighborhood with sidewalks and bike lanes, ample public transit, and one which has schools, shops, and hangouts located within close range to home. That sounds a lot like Takoma Park, Bethesda, or below-the-Beltway Silver Spring. Rockville, with its new town center and excellent bike network, isn't far behind.

Scott Doyon at the PlaceShakers blog also notes that these places give kids the valuable opportunity to make mistakes:

For a child, having increasing opportunities to navigate the world around them, explore, invent, fall down, scrape knees, make decisions, screw up, get into—and solve—conflicts and, ultimately, achieve a sense of personal identity and self-sufficiency is a good thing. The right thing.

Of course, kids who can actually get around on their own two feet might do some unsavory things. Some of the kids who walk to downtown Bethesda, for instance, might've gone to buy drugs at the movie theatre on Wisconsin Avenue. But it's not like the car-bound kids in Germantown and Olney weren't doing that, and it's a lot harder to hide destructive behaviors when you're not in a two-ton vehicle.

The first time I was allowed to go anywhere by myself was at age 8, when my family lived in Georgian Towers in downtown Silver Spring. I was only taking the elevator from our apartment to the lobby, but I was so excited I screamed the whole way down. Pretty soon, I could walk to my friends' apartments, across the street to Woodside Park, around the corner to 7-Eleven, and so on. This ended a few years later when we moved to Calverton, where there's very little within walking distance. But I still knew that I had the power to do things on my own.

My 12-year-old brother, meanwhile, has spent his entire life in Calverton. When he's not at school, he's at home playing video games, but I've noticed he doesn't have a close group of friends because they don't live nearby. Last year, I took him to walk with my former boss, Councilmember Leventhal in a parade in Kentlands, one of Montgomery County's few truly walkable neighborhoods.

"Isn't this great, Tyler?" I asked as I took him around Kentlands' Main Street, where we could see kids ducking into shops and hanging out in a little green. "Kids your age who live in this neighborhood can walk to school, to friends' houses, and to the movies! Wouldn't you like that?"

Tyler looked at me like I'd said the sky was green. "Why would I want to walk?" he replied. "Mom and Dad can just drive me there."

As a result, I tend to see most of the issues I write about, from better bike trails and infill development to skateparks and curfews, from the perspective of kids like my brother. I don't just think that good urbanism can make better communities. I think it makes better kids: confident, independent, and more aware of the world around them.

We talk about how urban neighborhoods are drawing young adults and senior citizens alike. But they have a lot to offer kids and teenagers, as well. That's the great part about good urbanism: it can work for everyone, regardless of age or situation.