> Dan wrote, in part: > [...] > One concl...

2009-12-12T11:55:50.902-05:00

> Dan wrote, in part:
> [...]
> One conclusion that we can
> draw from the survey is that
> while stakeholders enjoy
> Wheaton's diverse population
> and small businesses, [...]

Dan, I'd love to have you explain what, exactly, was in the survey you described, which would lead anyone to think that stakeholders enjoy the "diverse" population. Perhaps they do enjoy it, but I see nothing in your description of the survey which could possibly warrant such a conclusion.

Indeed, the fact that people allegedly much preferred images of parks without people to parks with people, one might tend to take the opposite view, less about the concept of liking or disliking "diversity", and more about preferring open spaces to densely populated ones.

I realize that a lot of the results you detail could easily be interpreted as a slap in the face to a lot of the concepts that the Urban Planning Trendies hold dear -- such as a grossly overcrowded urban landscape where everyone is reduced to pedestrianism and parks are just another plaza full of people except this one's got trees -- and perhaps you might take that to heart.

Keep in mind that it may also reflect the fact that, given a choice, people tend to live near places that reflect their lifestyle choices. Given that some people do much prefer the crowded and carless uber-urban environment, develop some places that way. People who want that either already live in such places or they'll flock to them if you do build them. Yet some people prefer places like Wheaton to remain much as they are, places that are familiar and on the scale and mode of life that attracted them there in the first place, or to which they became accustomed as they grew up there.

Hasn't anyone noticed that all of the plans and "revisions" and "upgrades" of Wheaton have generally had as much success as all of the interations of Rockville Mall? They first tried it in the 1970s, and a bit over 30 years later it mostly works, but think of all the time, money, business failures, and then also think of the many years when shopping in city-center Rockville had all of the attractiveness of immersing one's head in an outhouse. Sure, you can do it, but almost anything else is better. And even what they have there now is an attraction to the wider area mostly because of the theaters; almost all other shoppers are strictly metro-system ridership or the "captive audience" of workers and people doing business at the County buildings.

I know the UP Trendies keep going on about "Creating Place in Urban Space", but when you take someplace like Wheaton, it's already a Place, and if you overwhelm it with UP Trendy icons it's just another zipcode and will lose the sense of Place that makes so many people actually want to call it home.

2009-12-08T10:24:38.440-05:00

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> Dan wrote, in part: > [...] > One concl...