Pearlstein to Inviting Streetscapes: Drop Dead!
You have to give Steven Pearlstein credit. It's easy to be wrong about stuff: to call Tysons Corner a choice address, to fault Reston for not having bums and graffiti, or to assert that building churches is a better use of public money than constructing a tunnel for the Orange Line extension. Anyone can pen those garden variety inanities. It takes balls to compare Route 7 to Midtown Manhattan. That's some grade A crazy; we're actually a little impressed.
But we're still appalled that the Post would let such a confused and ill-informed take on reality, to say nothing of the finer concepts of urban planning, make it into print. It's difficult, in responding, to know quite where to begin. But let's start with the comparison between Reston and Tysons, which seems, on its face, a little off. Says Reston expert DCist Jason Linkins:
Thank you, Jason.So far as I can remember, Tyson's was never a "choice address." It was a place that people simply had the need to go to from time to time. I can't imagine that anyone who lived there actually enjoyed it. And while Reston most definitely lacks the urban grit to elevate it above lame, it is nevertheless livable. Every neighborhood has its own municipal pool, you can bike all over the town, it's exceedingly clean and leafy (though poorly lit), the schools are all habitable, the groceries easy to get to — and this was the way it was even before Town Center.
When he says "the suburban experience epitomized by Tysons had fallen out of favor", I'm like, when was it ever IN favor? And while Town Center is absolutely homogeneous and plasticine, Tyson's is not, comparatively, full of "messy vitality"...the place is better described as "a chaotic dump."
Photo by robobuzz.
You sort of have to envy Pearlstein for being able to look upon the traffic-choked, pedestrian death ground of Tysons as an example of vitality. He notes, "Like people in Chicago, people in Tysons don't amble or poke along — they've got things to do," and indeed they do. Many find themselves needing to inch their car forward. Others must sprint across eight lanes of traffic without the help of a crosswalk. Ah, the energy!
Pearlstein goes on to state, "My point is that when talking about creating an "urban" experience in the suburbs or the exurbs, there is more to it than road grids, streetscapes and walkability," and here he's correct, also. There's the need to facilitate interactions — social and commercial — for many people at a low cost. And grit or no grit, Tysons is far less able to do that than Reston, never mind New York. Tysons doesn't know from populous, and it's already crippled by traffic. This new downtown plan isn't a lark, or some lame attempt to copy Reston's new urbanism; it's a dire necessity. Reston doesn't work because people suddenly discovered the joy of perambulation; it works because those lovely streetscapes make it possible to live, shop, and do business in a way that's much more efficient than honking repeatedly on your way to the Mall parking deck.
But Pearlstein isn't just about the strip malls and sprawl of yesteryear. He's a forward thinking man, ready to embrace mass transit under the right circumstances. And when it comes to solving the growing difficulties of mass suburb-to-suburb commutes involving tens of thousands of cars, he's got the answer: "Some sort of circulator bus or trolley seems inevitable." Yes! A trolley! A bright red one that seats ten — or even twenty — passengers! Next stop, the land of make believe!
Mr. Pearlstein closes, finally, by betting on Tysons Corner as more likely than Reston to embody, in the long term, a real urban experience. I'd love to take him up on that, except that Virginia's already given up on the vitality and energy of a gridlocked trip to Route 7, in favor of density, mixed-use buildings, and mass transit. So, you see, we wouldn't really be betting against each other's ideas, we'd just both be agreeing that sensible folks are right and Mr. Pearlstein is crazy. Still, I'd love to make a wager with the old codger, so I want to put to you, readers, a request. In the comments, please suggest, if you will, a pair of Washington neighborhoods analogous to Tysons and Reston, but where the Tysons-like 'hood isn't planning on becoming Reston-like in the immediate future. If we can find one, I'll take that pair to Mr. Pearlstein and see if he's prepared to make a bet along the same lines. Deal?