since the great recession, east county's real estate market has diverged

Nearly a decade ago, the Great Recession wiped out house values across the region. Today, booming close-in, urban areas have basically recovered. But many further-out, suburban communities are still struggling. Here’s one example from eastern Montgomery County.

A 2000s-era subdivision in East County. Many of these homes lost value during the Great Recession and have yet to recover. All images by the author.

I grew up in downtown Silver Spring at a time when people were still moving away from urban centers. Twenty years ago, my neighborhood consisted of abandoned buildings and boarded-up stores, and in 1998, my parents started looking for houses outside the Beltway in places like Olney and Burtonsville, which seemed ascendant at the time. Besides, we were already driving to shop there. My parents found a little split-level house a mile from a new shopping center with a Target, Chipotle, and Starbucks.

My high school, Blake, opened that same year, and most of my friends’ parents seemed to have made the same move from Silver Spring and Takoma Park. New subdivisions were popping up with big, luxurious houses, lush lawns, and names like Briarcliff Manor and Hampshire Greens. In the older neighborhoods, houses were sold for the land so big McMansions could rise in their places.
I remember going to a party at the end of high school where we sat in a circle bragging about how much our parents’ houses were worth. I was the odd one out because my parents’ house had appraised recently at a measly $500,000.

An abandoned house in an East County subdivision in 2014.

But it wouldn’t last; the Great Recession hit East County pretty hard. Burtonsville Crossing, the shopping center where we hung out in high school, is almost completely vacant. Some of my parents’ neighbors, unable to make ends meet, resorted to running illegal auto shops out of their homes, inviting relatives to move in, or renting out their basements.

Meanwhile, downtown Silver Spring had a comeback as more people sought urban living. A major redevelopment project along Ellsworth Drive brought restaurants, shops, movie theaters, and a Whole Foods. Montgomery County poured millions into new public facilities, including a library, the Civic Building, and Veterans Plaza. In response, private developers built thousands of new apartments and condominiums, including the building I live in now, a converted bottling plant that was still operating when I was a kid.

Here's how the real estate market in East County has changed

The real estate market shows how Silver Spring has bounced back from the recession while East County has struggled. Here’s a graph showing average home values in 2012 and 2017 as they compare to 2007 levels. It shows the two zip codes inside the Beltway, 20910 (Silver Spring) and 20912 (Takoma Park), and seven zip codes (mostly) outside the Beltway: 20901 (Four Corners), 20902 (Wheaton), 20903 (Hillandale) 20904 (Colesville, Fairland), 20905 (Cloverly), 20906 (Aspen Hill) and 20866 (Burtonsville).

How 2012 and 2017 home values in East County stack up to 2007 levels. Click on all of these graphs to enlarge them.

Home values all over East County fell during the Great Recession. In zip codes 20903 and 20906, home values fell by nearly half between 2007 and 2012. This year, average home values in the eight zip codes outside downtown Silver Spring are 71% to 85% of what they were a decade ago. But in zip code 20910, which contains downtown Silver Spring, values are actually a little higher than they were 10 years ago.

Home values inside the Beltway have recovered, but remain lower elsewhere. 

Homes inside the Beltway have been more valuable than those outside it for a while now. But the gap in home values has increased over the past 10 years. This graph shows the average home sale price per square foot, as a way to even out differences between houses of different sizes and styles. In the summer of 2007, the price per square foot in zip codes 20910 (Silver Spring) and 20866 (Burtonsville) were fairly close, at $363 per square foot and $304, respectively. Today, they’re $384 and $257; in other words, a difference of 50%.

Those who bought homes in East County before the housing boom, or at the bottom of the market, may have recovered their investments or even made a little extra. But those who bought at the top of the market saw their gains wiped away.

Homes in far-flung zip code 20905 linger on the market longer than homes closer in.

Another measure of demand is the number of days a house sits on the market. During the Great Recession, houses across East County languished for months due to a lack of buyers. In early 2008, the average house in zip code 20905 sat on the market for nearly six months. Demand returned, but not equally. In early 2017, homes in the 20910 zip code spent just 22 days for sale, compared to 59 days in 20905.

There's a huge opportunity in East County, but things need to change

Like many aging suburbs, East County is caught in the middle. The kids I grew up with have either moved to urban areas closer in, or moved farther out to newer suburbs in Olney or Howard County, aided by new highways like the InterCounty Connector that made it easier to commute longer distances. East County is a long drive from Montgomery County’s biggest job and shopping centers, which are all along Rockville Pike and I-270. And the local schools struggle with a negative reputation compared to their counterparts in more affluent areas.

New townhomes in downtown Silver Spring, where home values are higher than they were in 2007. 

Yet the fact that homes here are much more affordable than in other parts of the county could be a big opportunity. Nationwide, some three million Millennial homebuyers have been shut out of the housing market because of high prices and a lack of supply. Millennials are open to living in suburban areas, but want stuff they can walk or bike to.

More neighborhood connectors are needed in #EastMoCo to provide options to get to stores when kids demand pancakes at 7 am. @MCBikePlan pic.twitter.com/Op1q3DTMbf

— Growing East County (@GrowingEastMoCo) July 15, 2017

Providing that lifestyle in East County is imperative to drawing people and investment to this area, just as it did in Silver Spring. Montgomery County’s plans to create a walkable town center and research park in White Oak and a new village center in Burtonsville will bring the amenities people want, while a new BRT line on Route 29 will provide faster, more reliable transit. Combined, the two will give East County access to jobs, shopping, and economic opportunities.

East County has waited decades for the kind of prosperity the rest of Montgomery County takes for granted, and at great cost. Hopefully residents won’t have to wait much longer.

a utility line in olney carries more than gas

Utility lines provide us amenities like electricity, water, and gas, but they can also improve the physical connections between communities. A new video shows how one gas line in Montgomery County doubles as a trail and neighborhood gathering space.



John Wetmore, producer of the public access TV show Perils for Pedestrians, recently made a video about an underground pipeline in Olney. The line cuts a 200-foot-wide swath nearly two miles long through several neighborhoods, with just two streets crossing it.

Instead of closing it off, gas company Transcontinental opened the land above its underground pipeline in Olney to the public, building a foot and bike path along its entire length, as well as an informal playing field. Not only does this provide a usable open space for the neighborhood, but the trail's an important connection within the community, providing access to other trails, parks, a library, schools, and several shopping centers.

MoCo's McMansions may need to find a new purpose

The future of this Sandy Spring McMansion is in question.

Skeptics of Montgomery County's proposal to allow homeowners to build accessory apartments more easily claim it will change or harm single-family neighborhoods. But recent trends in housing suggest that those neighborhoods will change anyway.

Slightly less than half of Montgomery County households live in single-family homes today, and pretty soon they may no longer be the most common type of house in the county. According to the 2010 American Community Survey, a sort of yearly census, just 49.9% of the county's 353,000 households live in single-family homes. Another 31% live in apartments or condominiums, while the remaining 19% live in townhomes or duplexes.

Demand for big suburban houses or "McMansions" has waned in recent years, due to their high cost and shrinking households. Young adults aren't interested in them, either. Even those who prefer single-family homes would take a smaller house or a townhouse to be closer to jobs and amenities.

As a result, newly built homes are more likely to be apartments or townhomes. Data from the MoCo Planning Department shows that of 29,000 homes approved for construction here in the coming years, just 7,900 or 27% of them will be single-family homes. Those houses are likely to be smaller as well.

Nonetheless, there are still plenty of McMansions in Montgomery County: the 2010 ACS says that one-fourth of MoCo homes have nine or more rooms. What will happen to them? These houses will have to adapt to living arrangements they were't built for, and the single-family neighborhood as we know it may have to change as well.

Rainbow Mansion. Photo by dweekly on Flickr.

Some of these big houses might attract single adults, who find they can afford a nicer home if they share it with other people. Group houses aren't new to Montgomery County; in fact, they're legal if there's fewer than 5 unrelated adults in the same house. But they do present an opportunity to create small "intentional communities," where residents seek not only a common roof but a common purpose as well.

Take Rainbow Mansion, a 5,000-square-foot home in Silicon Valley home to a group of twentysomething tech workers. The home's founders describe themselves as "intentional community of driven, international, passionate, and socially conscious people trying to change the world":

It was more than just a luxury home full of brilliant young minds . . . The Rainbow Mansion was an experiment in a new type of cohabitation. The house began hosting hackathons and salons in its library, inviting Silicon Valley’s best and brightest to participate. “Right away it set itself in motion,” [co-founder Jessy Kate] Schingler says. “It had this sort of accidental mystique about it.”

A house that was probably built for a nuclear family has instead become the nucleus of a larger community. Of course, Montgomery County isn't Silicon Valley. But it's easy for me to imagine something like Rainbow Mansion appearing in a house near the Great Seneca Science Corridor one day. After all, there are over 500,000 jobs in MoCo, and young adults who seek the city life but work in Gaithersburg will probably live nearby rather than commute from the District.

A NextGen home in South Carolina. Image from Lennar's website.

Other large homes may still draw families, but they'll be extended, multi-generational families, with grandparents, adult children, and other relatives and friends. They're living together to share expenses but may want some level of privacy and autonomy.

Today, MoCo's extended families can apply to build a "Registered Living Unit" in their home, basically an accessory apartment for a relative or home employee who lives there rent-free. There are only about 500 of these in the county today, but as multi-generational families become more common, we may see more of them.

Even home builders are picking up on the trend, adding apartments for extended family in new homes. Noting that nearly a third of American families have "doubled up" with relatives or friends, national builder Lennar Homes recently introduced a design called the "NextGen" home.

Floorplan of a NextGen home in South Carolina, with separate apartment highlighted in blue. Image from Lennar's website.

Called a "home within a home," the NextGen home looks like a typical single-family house on the outside, but inside is a separate apartment with its own private entrance, kitchen, and bathroom. Lennar hopes it'll be popular with immigrant families in which multiple generations live together.

While these homes are only being built in a handful of states like South Carolina and California, they have yet to make an appearance in the D.C. area. But Montgomery County's growing immigrant population suggests there may be a market for homes like this here.

For much of the 20th century, Montgomery County was known for big houses, great schools and affluent families. It's not surprising that civic groups call single-family neighborhoods the "backbone" of the county. While those neighborhoods may not be going away anytime soon, changing trends and changing demographics suggest they may look quite different in the future.

the Post tries to find the forgotten village of norwood (updated)

UPDATE: A very nice gentleman named Vic Seested sent an e-mail to Post reporter Katie Shaver (who then forwarded it to me) calling us both out for our blatant ignorance of local history:

your article in the post today-destination unknown has to be one of the worst researched i've read in some time. you had the misfortune of not getting up from your desk and from talking with some really stupid clueless people. facts. at the intersection of "norwood rd and 182" is the old maryland state police medivac factility. the sign which is still there says "norwood division". where did they pull that one from. next, the road at the intersection of 182 and "NORWOOD RD" might be a clue that there was/is something called norwood at one time. guess what. about 1/2 mile up norwood rd, not far from the idiot at the sandy spring museum, which is 1/2 mile from norwood road is a maryland/montgomery county historic home. guess what the name is? NORWOOD. guess why the area is called norwood? the newcomers like the 20 something has no history and no sense of history. thank god he is working on city planning. he could be working on nuclear defense. see the attached. vic seested

Thanks, Vic. (And thanks for the follow-up e-mail you sent me explaining that there "is no cure for stupid.")

POST: Check out the Weekend section in today's Washington Post. There's an interesting article by Katie Shaver on the forgotten village of Norwood, brought back to life by an exit sign on the InterCounty Connector. And it features a few quotes from yours truly since I blogged about it last month:

Just Up the Pike blogger Dan Reed, who grew up in the area, said the sign piqued his interest when he tried out the ICC while home for Thanksgiving from the University of Pennsylvania . . .

He said he thinks of the influence that the names of Metrorail stations, such as White Flint in North Bethesda, have had in identifying communities.

“I’d be curious,” Reed said, “if in 20 years people say, ‘I live in Norwood,’ because of the highway sign.”

More interesting is the explanation from Scott Crumley, lead traffic engineer for the toll highway, as to how the Norwood exit got its name:

Scott Crumley, the ICC project’s lead traffic engineer, said state highway planners and ICC officials thought of Norwood in 2005, when the state was drafting the project’s bid documents . . .

Notes from numerous meetings about the exit signs show that Ashton was considered a natural northern destination for the New Hampshire Avenue (Route 650) exit and that Olney was noted to be due north of the ICC via the Georgia Avenue (Route 97) exit.

“If you look at 182 [Layhill Road], it doesn’t go to Ashton. It doesn’t go to Olney. It really doesn’t go to Sandy Spring,” Crumley said. Norwood, which he said is on U.S. Postal Service maps even though it no longer has a post office, “was kind of the best of what they had to work with.”

That makes enough sense. Special thanks go to Katie Shaver for doing the research that my Google searches couldn't, but also for giving me a shout-out. I'm glad that our local newspapers are willing to work with local bloggers.

forgotten village of norwood makes comeback with ICC sign (updated)

UPDATE: Our friend Matt Johnson from GGW explains what control cities actually are and how the names of certain places end up on highway signs.



Before the InterCounty Connector opened two weeks ago, I've wondered what the exits along the new highway would be called, since much of its route through East County goes through places that are called "Silver Spring". Over Thanksgiving weekend, I got to drive the full length of the road for the first time, and I found my answer.

There is a "Silver Spring" exit, at Route 29. The Georgia Avenue exits are signed "Olney" and "Wheaton," which makes sense, as do the exits for "Ashton" and "White Oak" at New Hampshire Avenue. Things get weird at Layhill Road. There, you can go south for "Glenmont" or north for "Norwood."

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which sets guidelines for highway design throughout the United States, has rules for listing "control cities" on highway signs. I've never read them, but I'm of the understanding that control cities usually have to be of a certain size to appear on a sign. Also, I imagine that people have to acknowledge them as actual places that, you know, exist.

Glenmont generally makes sense, because it has a Metro station and is generally recognized as a place, though I've never heard anyone say they "live in" Glenmont rather than Silver Spring or Wheaton.

But Norwood? I'm less convinced. There's Norwood Road, which connects to Layhill Road, but I've never heard of a "Norwood, Maryland," and when I entered it into Google Maps, they sent me to Norwood, Massachusetts. OpenStreetMap, the user-generated map, took me to the intersection of Norwood Road and Layhill Road, just north of the ICC.

So I looked at that junction and was even more confused. Google Maps calls it "Colesville". Go west on Norwood Road and you'll find the Sandy Spring Friends School, which not surprisingly gives its address as "Sandy Spring," but go east and there's Blake High School, which says it's in "Silver Spring."

The Red Door Store today.

Then there's the Red Door Store, a beer, wine and deli in a 150-year-old building right at the corner of Norwood and Layhill that closed in 2007. According to the Sandy Spring Museum, the Red Door Store was once a post office for a village called Norwood. Stanley Stabler, who grew up in the area nearly a century ago (and whose family name appears on a street nearby), recalls what the area was like:

Norwood at the time was known as Holland's Corner. Where the Red Door Country Store trades today, James Holland opened a store about 1860 and in 1889 became the first postmaster. Nearby was a scales and a smithy run by Lawrence Budd. All around stood fine homes: Snowden Manor of the Quaker Hollands, Llewellyn Fields, Plainfield, Woodlawn, and the home called Norwood.

Map of historic Norwood courtesy of the Sandy Spring Museum.

So, let's get this clear: Norwood was a house, then a post office. The village of Holland's Corner eventually became the village of Norwood around 1890. And today, it's either Colesville, Sandy Spring, or more likely Silver Spring.

Given that convoluted history, perhaps the real question is what Norwood will be. Before Francis Preston Blair discovered the Silver Spring, the area around Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road was called "Simpsonville." The Sandy Spring Museum's website lists all sorts of places in East County that have been lost to the sands of time, like Oakdale and Cincinnati. With Norwood's newfound status as a highway exit, it doesn't have to go the same way.

Who knows? In twenty years, people might say they live in Norwood rather than Sandy Spring, Silver Spring or anything else. Of course, it would help if the Red Door Store reopened. Norwood doesn't have much of a reason to exist without, you know, actual things to do there.

MoCo may be diverse, but it's not integrated yet

Last year, Montgomery County became majority-minority for the first time. But our neighborhoods aren't as integrated as they could be, threatening the county's ability to grow and prosper.

On Sunday, the Post featured a cover story on newly-diverse suburban neighborhoods across the United States, focusing on the Hillandale neighborhood of Silver Spring:

From one end of McGovern Drive to the other, and on adjacent streets, a boundless diversity continues: immigrants, or their offspring, from Jamaica and Haiti, Egypt and Israel; African Americans who have lived there for 20 years; and whites who bought their homes when Lyndon Johnson was president.

Since 1999, my family's lived in Calverton, which like Hillandale a few miles away was until recently a predominantly-white community. In 1990, whites made up almost three-fourths of Calverton's roughly 11,000 residents. Though the neighborhood has grown by more than half since then, whites and blacks make up equal shares of its population, at about 39 percent each. The Asian population's been steady, but the Hispanic contingent has tripled to become one-tenth of the community. Check out this graph (it may not add up to 100% because Hispanics are counted as an ethnicity, not a race):
 



Yet as Montgomery County becomes more polyglot, it's not necessarily integrated. Two years ago, my brother graduated from Galway Elementary School in Calverton. Its nearly 800 students are half black, a quarter Hispanic and just 4.3 percent white. In a neighborhood where the median household income is $76,000 a year and the average home sells for nearly $400,000, 60 percent of students are on free or reduced lunch. In addition, test scores are generally lower than they are at elementary schools elsewhere in the county.


Signs at Galway Elementary are written in English and Spanish. Photo by Mark Doore, Calverton Citizens Association.

Where are Calverton's white and middle-class residents? Some of our neighbors have moved away to Rockville or Olney, which are generally more affluent and have higher-rated public schools. Those who remained chose to "opt out" of the system, putting their kids in private school. They also take part in other exclusive amenities, like the members-only Calverton Swim Club across the street from Galway. A quick look at the club's website reveals a mirror image of the school:

 
The membership of Calverton Swim Club remains predominantly white, though the neighborhood isn't. Photo by Mark Doore, Calverton Citizens Association. 

This isn't necessarily a problem for our family. My parents are very involved in my brother's education and are generally happy with his experience at Galway and now at Briggs Chaney Middle School, which is slightly more diverse. While my family aren't members of the Calverton Swim Club, we can go to the nicer and public Martin Luther King, Jr. Pool, which has water slides and a lazy river.

At the same time, it's generally recognized that the United States will cease to be a predominantly-white nation in about thirty years, and we're seeing the beginnings of that in Montgomery County. This actually puts us in the catbird seat: if we're going to compete in a global society, we must be able to understand and react to cultural differences. Your kids might be having birthday parties with Salvadorian, Iranian and Korean kids today, but they're preparing themselves to do business with people from those countries in the future.

Montgomery County has the ability to use its polyglot population as a strength, to create better, unified communities and draw investment and ideas from around the world. Yet it's frequently thwarted when more fortunate residents try to keep the less privileged out or, as in Calverton, "opt out" of the community altogether.

For years, the Columbia Country Club and the Town of Chevy Chase has fought to keep the Purple Line out of their community. A community group in Silver Spring tried to remove a soccer field in a local park because Hispanic teams from outside the neighborhood were using it. And neighbors in Bethesda had a vacant home demolished rather than letting a homeless family live there. These actions may benefit a small minority, but in the end, they hurt everyone.

This county's long had a reputation for progressive politics due to our affordable housing program and agricultural preserve. As a result, we tend to take diversity for granted, assuming that having Hispanic Heritage Month each October or occasionally eating ethnic food in Wheaton is enough. (Meanwhile, some are afraid to eat in Wheaton at all.) But this isn't enough. In order to fully take advantage of the county's diversity, and to ensure that everyone has a place here, we have to create truly integrated communities.  

This might just look like a game, but it represents the future of Montgomery County.

How can we do this? We have to work even harder to create an equitable school system, ensuring students in affluent "Green Zone" schools and struggling "Red Zone" schools get the same level of education. Meanwhile, we have to continue investing in older communities like Silver Spring where "Red Zone" schools are located to give people the option of staying rather than moving further out and self-segregating.

We have to create neighborhoods that are accessible to a broad swath of the population, by providing a mix of housing styles and prices. In addition, we have to make it safer and easier to get around by foot, by bike and by public transit, which benefit all residents, not just those who can afford a car. And we have to make everyone feel welcome here, instead of scapegoating immigrants or teenagers. 

Most importantly, we have to have the political wherewithal to do these things, rather than capitulate to groups who fight to preserve the status quo.

It's been a long time since Montgomery County was the "perfect suburbia," and it's not always clear what we'll become. Nonetheless, we have the opportunity to become something even greater. It won't be easy, but if we want to ensure the county's continued prosperity, we don't have a choice.

will the ICC keep the status quo in east county?

The State Highway Administration is running radio ads for the InterCounty Connector, presumably because a half-century of debating whether to build the highway had most people convinced it would never open. In the ad, a woman says the ICC will allow her to sleep in later and spend more time at home with her family because she'll spend less time in traffic.

Going east on the ICC towards Georgia Avenue. Photo courtesy of Dan Malouff at BeyondDC.

I was thinking about this when one of my old friends from high school who currently lives in Olney, sent me this tweet: "Do you think Olney will become more popular because of the ICC?" she asked.

Before the ICC, Olney was a relatively isolated part of Montgomery County. It was seven miles from the nearest Metro station and nine miles from the nearest highway exit. Back in 2009, I wrote that the ICC would drag Olney "kicking and screaming" into the rest of the county and the D.C. area.

That doesn't mean people will start flocking to Olney now that they can get there from Gaithersburg in eight seven minutes. Really, it's the other way around: people in Olney, or Colesville, or Burtonsville will leave (or continue leaving) East County for the things they want or need: jobs in Gaithersburg, shopping in Rockville, restaurants in Bethesda.

If you follow the ICC to I-370 (as far as I'm concerned, they're the same highway), you'll end up at Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg, where big-box stores and white-tablecloth eateries alike huddle around a little Main Street and an artificial lake. Developed by the Peterson Companies, the same folks who brought us Downtown Silver Spring, Washingtonian taught Montgomery County how to walk around outside after decades cooped up in shopping malls. I remember going there when I was thirteen and being mesmerized by it.

Washingtonian Center used to be an hour's drive from my parents' house in Calverton. Last Friday, I got there in twenty-five minutes. Will East County still be interested in fixing up Burtonsville when it's just as easy to spend your time and money elsewhere? I mean, it's not like the last highway we built here did anything for local businesses.

The ICC has opened up a lot of opportunities for Montgomery County, as I wrote last week. Yet there's a potential danger. Highways make it easier to go from one place to another, but they don't automatically make those places better. The woman in the ad wants more time with her family, but couldn't she also save time if her daily needs didn't require a trip by highway?

what's up the pike: under the bridge downtown . . .

- TBD reports that support is growing for a $750,000 pedestrian bridge connecting the future Silver Spring Library at Wayne and Fenton to the parking garage across the street. While I've heard compelling arguments for the bridge - namely that the intersection of Wayne Avenue, Fenton Street and the future Purple Line will be a super hassle for pedestrians to cross - I strongly feel that the answer is to fix the intersection and make it more amenable to all walkers, not bypass it with a bridge solely for those going to the library. Here's hoping this idea stays on the drawing board. We've got better things to do with that money.

- Perhaps you do catch more flies with honey than vinegar, because Sk8ter Mom is back with a thoughtful and reasoned explanation of the need for a skatepark in downtown Silver Spring. If the comments following the Kojo in Your Community show last week were any indication, people weren't too happy about her appearance (with many young local skaters in tow) at the meeting. Hopefully, Sk8ter Mom's latest attempt to make her case can be more persuasive.

But wait, there's more:

- Historian 4 Hire David Rotenstein looks back at his past work in journalism and writing about folk music in the Deep South.

- Prince of Petworth visits the new-ish Silver Spring Civic Building, and by "visit" we mean "looked at some photos of Flickr," because we know everything that's not in the District is tragically lame and not worth paying any real attention to.

- Congratulations to Karen Montgomery, your new District 14 State Senator. After years of serving us as a delegate, we know that many good years lie ahead for East County.

what's up the pike: lost umbrella

- The Passive Aggressive Notes blog discovers the mobile, defamatory billboard in Takoma Park we wrote about last year.

- You know you're from Wheaton when you have a Facebook group devoted to nostalgia for when Wheaton Plaza didn't have a roof and "ethnic restaurant" meant Italian food.

- Speaking of nostalgia: check out these old Washington Post "Where We Live" profiles of Montgomery County neighborhoods from the 1990's: back when Burtonsville was young and innocent, when East County wanted to be "the new Potomac," and Woodmoor was still mysteriously stuck in the 1950's. Ah, memories.

And:

- From the Gazette: Neighbors of the Electric Maid music venue in Takoma, D.C. say they're tired of concertgoers scaling their houses and say there isn't enough parking for them. (Uh, do y'all know you can see the Metro from your front doors?)

- The South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association launches a "hyperlocal Craigslist" for neighbors trying to empty their apartment closets.

what's up the pike: tragedy towers

- Was there a suicide at The Georgian apartments at Georgia and Fenwick last week? At least three commenters at Georgian Confidential report seeing a man - allegedly a lifeguard at the building's rooftop pool - jump to his death in the courtyard below last Friday evening, though the local papers haven't reported anything yet.

- Mid-County Director Natalie Cantor re-caps meetings on the future of "downtown" Sandy Spring in preparation for a charrette this fall. On the boards: more housing and offices above stores; a village square where "grandparents can bring their grandchildren down for an ice cream cone," and parallel parking on Route 108 to slow traffic.

- Wheaton High could be merged with Thomas Edison High, the county's only vocational school, to become a "high-tech" school, says the Examiner. Parents worry it'll shortchange kids who aren't planning on going to college.

Briefly noted:

- A sophomore at Northwood High planned to bomb her school, says the Gazette.

- Good Eatin' continues to mourn the loss of the Wheaton Safeway.

- We get a lovely heads-up from Lydia over at Snoburbia.

what's up the pike: we found this in bethesda row

- Supporters of the Fillmore music hall have launched a campaign on Facebook to boycott the 9:30 Club, whose owner Seth Hurwitz has sued the state of Maryland for giving $4 million to the venue's operator, international promoter Live Nation. According to Facebook, among those boycotting 9:30 is former state Senator Ida Ruben, who has a District native has likely been to her share of harDCore shows there.

The Montgomery County Planning Board approved plans to build the Fillmore on Colesville Road two weeks ago and construction was scheduled to start this fall.

- East County eight-piece swing band Swingtopia returns to the Greek Village Restaurant in Colesville for another month of Monday shows. It all starts at 8pm tonight at the restaurant, located at New Hampshire Avenue and Randolph Road.

- And you know what I forgot starts today? SilverDocs, at the AFI Silver Theatre and other downtown Silver Spring venues through Sunday. Check out the schedule and film information here.

Last, but not least:

- William Smith at Montgomery Sideways wonders if his advocacy for pedestrians makes him a civil rights activist.

- Organizers of last April's Human Rights Art Festival say they're raising money for another one.

guest blog: against the generistocracy

Today's guest post comes from Dave Murphy, who writes the blog Imagine, DC. He grew up in Franklin Knolls (off University Boulevard) and offers us this story about coming of age in East County.



Fifteen years ago, I was a nonconformist in high school. Like my older brother before me, I sported wild hair and listened to the latest parent-unfriendly rock music. And I loved visiting Phantasmagoria, a (literally) underground record store on Grandview Avenue in Wheaton.

It was an easy walk from my high school, a since-demolished private Catholic school that has, in its relocation, implied that they want to keep lower middle class students like me from ever attending there again. But in 1995, that school was a quarter mile from the Wheaton Metro station where I caught the C2 or C4 home, and occasionally I would stop in at Phantasmagoria or one of the other quirky little off-the-beaten-path shops in Wheaton along the way.

In 1996, Phantasmagoria moved to Elkin Street, next to one of my other favorite Wheaton venues, Legends Pool Hall. "Phantaz", as we called it, added a grill and a stage at their new venue, and all of the sudden Elkin Street boasted two hip venues. The tight streets and nighttime activity created a sort of feral urbanism, an area to walk around and feel natural despite the fact that I was trying to distract myself from the continuing decay of community and the arts in suburbia.



Both Phantaz and Legends were places shady enough to be considered cool, but safe enough that my mother would reluctantly approve of me spending Friday nights shooting billiards and going to punk shows. Both were independent businesses, and both were affordable enough for crews of lower-middle class outcasts to seek refuge. In Legends, you were most likely to see Central American or Southeast Asian immigrants on the billiards tables or service industry types at the bar; meanwhile, Phantasmagoria attracted every kind of punk, indie rocker, metalhead, ska fan, or geek rocker you can imagine.

I never got into any trouble there, save for coming home smelling like cigarettes (which I don't smoke now, and certainly wasn't then). Nonetheless, I felt welcome and at home in the shadows and back alleys of Wheaton, not in Wheaton Plaza or fast food joints where my more clean-cut classmates might be found bubbling around after school.

Olney was well represented at my high school. In fact, the shiny new campus is up there, far away from the public transportation that allowed me to attend the Wheaton campus. I was forced to spend a great deal of time in Olney, especially during my junior year when I dated a girl who lived up off Emory Lane.



The entire town disgusted me. I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I often cited the lack of mature trees and the spread out nature, but my friends would accuse me of being jealous of the affluence. There was no walking around. A seventeen-year-old with a ponytail caught milling around in that neighborhood must have looked like a fly on a wedding cake. The vast cul-de-sac mazes of huge colonials with vinyl siding were built to isolate and exclude, and there were no gritty little holes in the wall or back alleys for kids like me to feel at home.

That’s when I coined the phrase "generistocracy" to describe Olney and many other Montgomery County sprawlburbs. It described the people who lived in those crisp, new, bland neighborhoods that where completely devoid of any stimulation and hadn’t been around long enough to develop any character. Generistocracy helped me separate places like Olney from places like downtown Bethesda, home of one of my favorite underground shops, a second hand boutique called Rerun that specialized in hippie attire and rock memorabilia.

Bethesda was wealthy like Olney, but Olney rubbed me the wrong way. I felt welcome in Bethesda. Olney made it clear that I had no business there. Downtown Bethesda wanted me to come in and walk around. Bethesda didn’t have much to offer a kid like me the way Wheaton did, but it gave me a sense of place that I never got from the generistocracy.



Meanwhile, I'd continue to discover Wheaton outside the mall. There was Barry's Magic Shop and an antique toy store that specialized in trains. There was House of Cards, a baseball card store, and Nick’s Diner, which only served breakfast and lunch. There was a military surplus store where I bought most of the patches that were sewn on my jacket. And there were not one, but two music stores where I would stare enviously at guitars and drum sets.

It didn't sink in that these were independent businesses, the kind that didn't care if a kid with a ponytail would come in and poke around despite being unable to make a purchase more often than not. Shopkeepers in the mall always eyeballed me as if I were going to steal something. But the best part about them, the part that wouldn't hit me until much later, was how accessible they were. I didn't need a car, money, or an agenda. I could just be there and fit in. Had Wheaton gone all Starbucks and Panera back then, I don't know how I would have made it through high school.

My girlfriend's father, a prominent local banker, forbade us to go to Legends, insisting we instead played pool at the billiard room in their house. Wheaton was just too dangerous for him. It was bad enough his daughter was dating a kid who in middle school hung out with his Salvadorian, Ivorian, and Cambodian friends in the garden apartments of Langley Park.

But for my part, I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, and I didn't even smoke. I wasn't in a gang, I didn't get into fights, and I wasn't vandalizing. I didn't go to edgy venues looking for mischief. I just liked the fact that there was a place for me to be, and in Wheaton I felt like I fit in pretty well.



I liked walking around. I liked being recognized and treated like a member of a community. I liked that the businesses welcomed me. I liked recommending these places to my friends who might actually buy something. And it made going to the bus station after school an interesting adventure, not a walk of shame for that poor kid whose parents hadn’t bought him a car yet.

I’m thirty now, and I don't go to Wheaton very often anymore. More often I find myself in downtown Silver Spring or Bethesda. As much as Wheaton shaped who I am and how much I appreciate a sense of place, it just reminds me of high school too much, and I wasn’t very fond of my high school. Phantasmagoria closed its doors for good in 2001. Legends is still there, though it's been nine years since I last set foot inside. Many of the other small, independent shops have either gone dark or moved.

But Wheaton still has a bit of that feral urbanism, set of raw streets with not-so-mainstream shops and businesses that feel a little off the beaten path despite the fact that they’re right in the middle of everything, versus the tame, boring set of chains in strip malls that litter much of the suburbs. As wave after wave of investment pours into the choice real estate around Wheaton Metro, I can only hope that the edgy underground Wheaton I grew up with can survive and thrive.

what's up the pike: put on a happy face

- STROyKA Theatre is a Silver Spring-based company devoted to "encourag[ing] members of the suburban communities . . . to become an active part of the Downtown DC Theatre Scene." This month, they're putting on a rendition of the musical Bye Bye Birdie, starring our very own Walter Gottlieb (whose latest work we wrote about last fall).

The show opens at 8pm tonight at the Burke Theater, 701 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in the District, with eight additional performances through the end of the month. FOr dates and ticket information, check out STROyKA's website.

- And tomorrow, Fenton Street Market hosts a skateboarding rally from 10am to 3pm. There'll be demos, videos and skateboards for sale, not to mention plans of the new skate spot being built in Woodside Park.

- The Planning Board has approved plans for the Fillmore music hall on Colesville Road and an office and hotel development behind it. If developers can get a site plan approved this summer, they're on schedule to break ground this fall. For more information, check out our previous posts on the Fillmore.

Last, but not least:

- Sandy Spring prepares for a charrette for the Route 108 strip later this fall.

- Richard Layman notes an anti-BP protest that took place just across the District line from Takoma Park and an student-designed pro-Purple Line poster with some unfortunate errors.

silver spring charrette: style vs. character

Last Saturday, designers, architects and planners held a charrette, or design workshop, at Fenton Street Market in downtown Silver Spring.

East Silver Spring resident Hannah McCann, who founded the market last fall, organized the event. A senior editor for Architect magazine, she enlisted several local design professionals to lead the workshop, talking and drawing with those who came by. With my help as moderator, we developed three questions to ask the public:

1) What kind of development should we have in Silver Spring?
2) How much development should we have?
3) How should we get around?

Dozens (if not hundreds) of residents stopped by to give input on how they'd like Silver Spring to grow. Most seemed happy with the community they live in today, but there was a lot of disagreement over its future. Over the next few days, we'll look at some of the issues that charrette participants raised.

Style vs. Character

Style is how most people who aren't architecturally trained understand the built environment. It's easy to "get" buildings if you can classify them as Victorian, Modernist or Art Deco. But style doesn't describe how a building works with or against its occupants, site and neighbors.

An "ugly, modern box." Drawing by Steve Knight.

Many people complained about the increase in "ugly, modern boxes" in Silver Spring. "I'm sick of all this glass and chrome," complains one woman. (We eventually figure out that by "chrome" she means "steel," as downtown Silver Spring is not a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air.) She feels that newer buildings downtown were cold and sterile and preferred older buildings. They're the soul of Silver Spring, she says.

She also doesn't like the new development on Ellsworth Drive. It has little glass or steel, but it was designed to feel like an outdoor shopping mall, not a city street. It feels "fake" to her, the woman laments.

"Of course it looks fake," I say, picking up a marker. "It's new." I start drawing and explain. Parts of Ellsworth pay homage to the old stuff - the Majestic 20 theatre, for instance, mimics the curved façade of the historic Hecht Company building (now City Place Mall) across the street.


Left: My drawing comparing the Majestic 20 (left) to City Place Mall. Right: the Majestic 20 in real life.

"And even though the buildings may seem inauthentic, the people are always real," I continue. "Kids my age, who grew up with Ellsworth Drive, love this place. I'll bet you that in twenty years, it will be an integral part of Silver Spring's culture."

Nonetheless, she asks me to draw her some traditional buildings for Silver Spring. I draw her a picture of some old storefronts on Georgia Avenue. They look much as they did in the 1920's, but have since experienced ninety years of history: different shops, different people, different times. "I love it!" she says, throwing up her hands in delight.

"What you're looking for is character," suggests Darrel Rippeteau of Rippeteau Architects. "In the future, say you want more character, not less modern."

Steve, Tony and Sandy's "Vision for Fenton Village."

A few tables away, architect Steve Knight of David M. Schwarz Architects and my friends Tony Maiolatesi and Sandy Schwartz - like me, both recent grads of the University of Maryland - are drawing a "Vision for Fenton Village" with traditional buildings. It didn't look too different from Bethesda Row or Kentlands, developments purposely designed to feel old.

These places have good urban design, with buildings close to the street and smaller, human-scaled features. There's also been no shortage of complaints that their style - lots of bricks, double-hung windows, and arches - feels "kitschy" or nostalgic.

1920's-era storefronts on Georgia Avenue, drawn by Darrel Rippeteau.

Of course, many people like and often prefer this aesthetic. But these two things are mutually exclusive. You can have an attractive building with poor urban design, like this strip mall in Frederick. But you can also have buildings with great urban design but poor aesthetics, like those along Ellsworth.

Yet none of these buildings can really have "character," no matter how old they look, if they're new. Character takes time to create, but it doesn't discriminate by architectural style. It is helped, however, by good urban form that encourages people to spend time in a place.

If we want a Silver Spring with character, we should worry less about the aesthetics of a building and more about how they relate to the user and to their context.

Come back tomorrow for part TWO of our charrette re-cap, but in the meantime, check out this slideshow of the Fenton Street Market charrette.

east county activists prepare to walk across country

Y'all might remember musician/activist/friend of JUTP Davey Rogner from our story two years ago on a student-led campaign against the InterCounty Connector, or maybe from his [now-defunct] band, Lonely are the Brave. When he recently told me about his plans to spend the next year and a half walking to San Francisco, I was impressed more than I was confused.

Most of my newly-graduated friends are either working or looking for work. But Davey, who grew up in White Oak, and a couple of his friends will leave in less than three weeks to walk from Maryland to California, organizing community trash clean-ups and leading discussion about "alternatives to our nation's throwaway mentality." Their campaign, dubbed Pick Up America, will maintain a heavy online presence during their trip. Pick Up America's holding a fundraiser tomorrow at the Sandy Spring Friends Meeting, and Davey sent out this letter to friends and family explaining their trip:

On March 20th, 2010 I am leaving to walk across the country and pick up trash for over a year and a half. As you have been a part of my life in some way, I feel it is my responsibility to let you know of my eminent departure. This journey, known as Pick Up America, is the the ultimate test of my physical, mental and spiritual stamina.

I know that by the time I complete this journey I will be drastically different. My first and primary motive for walking is to actualize my full potential. There is something inside me stirring; telling me that if I can improve myself, I can inspire others to take the proactive steps that will improve their lives. Through our website, social media, and short videos, our campaign hopes to illuminate a paradigm that measures well-being by the inner happiness one feels, as opposed to the material comforts one can gather. Pick Up America is my addition to the conversation of how we can reform the American lifestyle to become happier and healthier.

Like so many in the past, our path will mimic the great American migration west in search of more bountiful resources. Throughout our walk we will be speaking to people about how to sustain America's natural resources for generations to come. We believe that the concept of waste can and should be eliminated from the human paradigm. Yes, we are talking about RECYCLING and COMPOSTING, but more importantly we are addressing the pressing need to REDUCE and REUSE the number of products we consume on a daily basis. Simply put, we live in a finite world and the insatiable appetite of (not only) the American economy has overtaken the ability of the natural world to regenerate. If we continue along this path, the vital support base that the natural world provides to our economy will collapse and we will experience a serious downgrade in the human experience.

I would like to invite you to Pick Up America’s March Forth Fundraiser (on March 4th) at Sandy Spring Friends Community Center in Ashton, MD. The event will feature a description of our entire initiative, a three course vegetarian meal, jazz standards, local art that depicts our route, a raffle with cool prizes, as well as keynotes from the new mayor of College Park, MD Andy Fellows and Brent Bolin, the policy advocate for the Anacostia Watershed Society. We are asking for a minimum donation of $30 to attend. I have attached a flyer that details the event. Please RSVP as soon as possible as space is very limited.

In essence I am leading four people under the age of twenty-five into the heartland of America picking up trash, giving presentations about zero-waste economies and documenting our adventure on the internet. Along our path, we will be doing anything and everything we can to help people develop the ideas of how their community can actualize sustainability. The task is monumental and our success is wholly dependent upon our ability to communicate our vision and develop alternatives with interested individuals. It is also wholly dependent upon our ability to generate support from people who believe in this vision and would like to contribute to our adventure.

Please share Pick Up America with as many people you feel may be interested. If you would like to support Pick Up America, but can not make the fundraiser, please visit our website, www.pickupamerica.org, and make a contribution through paypal. I have taken the steps to designate our group as a non-profit, so all donations we receive will be tax deductible for your 2010 tax return as long as I provide you with the proper documentation. I will be trading slips in exchange for checks at the fundraiser. If you can’t make the fundraiser, donate and need documentation please write to me and I will get you the appropriate form.

Please contact me before I go if you would love to talk about my adventure!!!! Trust me, I can use all the advice I can get!!!!


--
All the Best,

Davey Rogner
Campaign Coordinator
Pick Up America

what's up the pike: can't always get what you want (updated)

- A proposed school and office building on Route 108 would bring up to 150 jobs to Sandy Spring, but not everyone's excited about it. The three-story building "definitely does not preserve and enhance rural village character," says Michelle Layton of the Sandy Spring-Ashton Rural Preservation Consortium. Supporters say that Sandy Spring won't get the little shops and boutiques they want if people aren't there to shop in them.

- There may not be any funds to renovate the Old Blair Auditorium, much to the chagrin of the project's supporters. The forty-year-old hall, adjacent to the former Blair High School on Wayne Avenue, has sat empty since 1998; last year, Calverton-based architecture firm Grimm + Parker did a feasibility study to see how it could be re-used.

- But there is another new local blog: What's Up Wheaton, though there's some Kensington in there too, because that's where the couple who writes it now live. They've already delved into Big Issues like the financial troubles at DeJaBel Cafe and the new Montgomery Royal Theatres. It's strange they'd write about said cinema while tweeting that they're going to see a movie in Tysons Corner, but this can be forgiven. JUTP wishes them the best of luck!

- Speaking of Wheaton and Kensington: I'm convinced that this photo, yesterday's DCist photo of the day was taken somewhere in eastern Montgomery County, specifically around Wheaton or Kensington. Can anyone figure out where this is and prove it? (I also note that I like the shoes in the photo.)

UPDATE: the photographer informs us the photo was taken at the corner of East-West Highway and Grubb Road in west Silver Spring.

I knew I recognized the houses in the background, particularly the one with the grey-purple porch. I wonder if people who live on major streets or highways realize how famous their houses are.

- The ongoing budget crisis means the Connect-A-Ride D bus, which runs between Burtonsville and the Laurel Mall, will be discontinued at the end of the month. Central Maryland Regional Transit, which operates the twenty-year-old route, says cutting it will save them $100,000.

we need higher fares, not service cuts for ride on

Thirty-one Ride On bus routes, including thirteen routes serving East County neighborhoods from Takoma Park to Olney, could see reduced service or be eliminated altogether under cuts proposed by Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett. The changes would close the county's $70 million budget gap by $2 million, but it would also eliminate a million of the thirty million annual trips taken each year using Ride On.

The full list of cuts (PDF!) include five Ride On routes in East County which would be cut completely. Four routes would stop running on weekends, including two Metrobus lines operated by Ride On, the L8 (Connecticut Avenue Line) and Z2 (Colesville-Ashton Line). Two routes, the 7 (Wheaton-Kensington) and 22 (Silver Spring-Hillandale) would lose some weekday service. Routes 15 & 17 (Silver Spring-Langley Park) and 34 (Aspen Hill-Friendship Heights) would run less often in the evenings.

At Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, planning consultant Richard Layman points out that the $2 million saved by reducing Ride On service could be made up by increasing fares by ten cents. It's easy to say that this would be unfair to working people - after all, that's exactly what they say about tolls on the InterCounty Connector. But if you don't want to pay to drive on the ICC, you can take another road. Transit users who don't or can't drive have no other alternative.

Going to the West Coast revealed to me just how cheap bus fares are in this area. Like Metrobus, Ride-On costs $1.35 to ride, or $1.25 with a SmarTrip card. In San Francisco and Portland, it's $2.00. In Seattle, a variable fare structure means you could pay up to $2.75 to ride the bus at rush hour. Like most public transit systems, none of these cities' buses pay for themselves, but they make it clear that people willingly accept higher fares. If a small increase in bus fares means keeping the service we've got, then by all means it should be implemented.

A bus stop on Good Hope Road for Route 39, which would not be cut.

On the other hand, why should we continue paying for routes with anemically low ridership? The five routes being eliminated are either redundant or serve areas where there are few people. Route 3 (Silver Spring-Takoma) loops around Downtown Silver Spring, blocks from any major attractions. Not surprisingly, it carries just eight people each hour.

Route 33 (Glenmont-Bethesda) avoids major roads like University and Connecticut in favor of a slow, winding trip down neighborhood streets. Route 21 (Silver Spring-Briggs Chaney) was created in 2006 to make up for Metrobus routes that were either cut or changed, but the indirect route that resulted attracts few riders.

Route 31 (Wheaton-Glenmont) wraps around Wheaton Regional Park. Route 53 (Shady Grove-Glenmont) ambles through parks and farmland outside of Olney. Kathy Jentz, editor of Washington Gardener magazine, has written about the importance of bringing transit to nature, but farms and parks aren't good at drumming up riders.

Rather than saving $2 million by cutting underperforming lines, we should redirect the money toward creating more efficient service. And if that's not enough to put buses in places where people can and will use them, we should increase bus fares as well. Paying more to ride the bus can be a financial hardship - but if people can't get to work, how do we expect them to cough up any money at all?

do netflix maps reveal demographic divide in silver spring?

No doubt you've already seen the New York Times' map of Netflix subscriptions broken down by zip code, with all of the demographic analysis that followed. We want to see ourselves in our movie choices - or, more accurately, we want to judge others by the movies they watch. A noble goal, indeed.

Map showing the popularity of foreign film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park take after Bethesda and Chevy Chase, rather than other parts of Silver Spring.

So what can we glean from Netflix maps of East County?

- Below-the-Beltway renters favor the kind of serious, indie, or foreign films you might see at the AFI Silver Theatre. Milk, the biography of slain gay-rights activist Harvey Milk, was #1 in Takoma Park and #2 in Silver Spring's 20910 zip code, but only #13 in above-the-Beltway Burtonsville. Not surprisingly, the heavy environmental message of kids' movie Wall-E appealed to renters in Takoma Park (#11), but didn't crack the top 50 in Burtonsville.

- Up the Pike, action and comedy movies prevail. Valkyrie with Tom Cruise was #8 in 20905 (Cloverly), while Eagle Eye starring Shia LaBoeuf was #8 in 20866 (Burtonsville). Paul Blart: Mall Cop hit #13 in 20832 (Olney), the only East County zip code where it broke the top 20.

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire topped rental lists countywide, except in Takoma Park (20912) and Bethesda (20814), where Milk was #1.

- Zip codes in rural areas with smaller populations had less consistent lists, either because the sample of renters was too small or because there's one person in Sandy Spring with bizarre taste in movies.

That's why in Sandy Spring (20861) melodramas like Australia (#2) and political movies like Frost/Nixon (#7) can coexist in the top ten. Or in Spencerville (20868), Lakeview Terrace (#6) and its red-state fears of suburban terrorism rub elbows with the Connecticut blue-bloods of Rachel Getting Married (#4).

- Along the future InterCounty Connector, where highway construction has left many broken promises and sleepless nights in its wake, romantic comedies like Nights in Rodanthe have taken hold. It's #14 in 20905 (Cloverly), #12 in 20906 (Aspen Hill) and #11 in 20866 (Burtonsville).

- Wheaton (20902) liked Twilight (#7) more than anywhere else on the east side, not surprising because it's the only east side zip code with a Hot Topic.

- East County doesn't seem to watch Tyler Perry movies, which didn't crack the top 50 anywhere except in Burtonsville, where The Family That Preys was #24.

Are more obscure films popular in Downtown Silver Spring because of its proximity to art-house theatres like the AFI?

What's most striking is that lists of the top 10 movies rented in 20910 (Silver Spring) and 20912 (Takoma Park) more resemble those in 20814 (Bethesda) and 20815 (Chevy Chase) than other zip codes in Silver Spring. If we wanted to make a gross, irresponsible, generalization, we could say that a revitalized Downtown Silver Spring has attracted educated, affluent people whose interests and values line up with our stereotypes of people in Bethesda, while everyone else has been forced to take refuge with their shitty action movies in places like Wheaton and Burtonsville.

Which is absolutely fine with me. I loved watching Liam Neeson shoot sex traffickers in Taken.