Urbanizing Suburbs and Towns

[Sol]

What suburbs have begun to retrofit? I'm aware of some of those developments in Montco and NoVa, but where else? Do all of these increasingly urban places vote D?

What towns (i.e., not suburbs, but independent towns) are densifying? How do they vote?

[Sol]

It is, yeah.  Smart growth people are in love with the Pacific Northwest.  MontCo and NoVa are, as mentioned, also excellent examples.  Maryland's been lagging behind a bit (thanks, PG), but I think the Purple Line should help improve on what's already been done.

I don't think Bloomington, MN is doing anything like this right now, but for various reasons they're not a bad candidate for doing so in the future, if the municipality can be convinced it's a good idea.  The only worry is really that there are still stretches of Minneapolis and St. Paul that aren't really urban, and with the Green Line just opening I think St. Paul is going to be in for a fun time in the near future.

Why is PG less friendly to such stuff? Is it a legacy of white flight?

[Sol]

It is, yeah.  Smart growth people are in love with the Pacific Northwest.  MontCo and NoVa are, as mentioned, also excellent examples.  Maryland's been lagging behind a bit (thanks, PG), but I think the Purple Line should help improve on what's already been done.

I don't think Bloomington, MN is doing anything like this right now, but for various reasons they're not a bad candidate for doing so in the future, if the municipality can be convinced it's a good idea.  The only worry is really that there are still stretches of Minneapolis and St. Paul that aren't really urban, and with the Green Line just opening I think St. Paul is going to be in for a fun time in the near future.

Why is PG less friendly to such stuff? Is it a legacy of white flight?

Er, PG is about 65% black, so...

Rather, it's just that the county government is incompetent, and has been for many decades.  (That might be indirectly the result of white-flight; like many majority-minority locations, PG has hardly seen any investment over the years from higher levels.)  It absolutely refuses to invest in intelligent growth, instead preferring the same large tracts of single-family homes far from transit that used to be the norm.  Single-family subdivisions don't sustain urbanization.   In a way, PG is more like everywhere else in the country; what needs to be explained is why Arlington (more than anywhere near DC), Montgomery (quite a bit), and Fairfax (to a surprising extent in recent times) have all been so good at investing in responsible growth.

What I meant was that it might have tried to stop white flight by discouraging urbanization and transit back in the late 20th century, unsuccessfully of course.