Reply to Soooo, how is high-density looking to everyone now?

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Soooo, how is high-density looking to everyone now?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]By all means let’s build more suburbs and exurbs on former farm lands and more highways because everyone in those sprawling subdivisions will complain about traffic. The more we build further out is the best solution to urban problems. All you drivers are the reason for pollution, run off, tree loss. Living in a city is the most environmentally sound choice you can make. 
As for schools, if you want to end overcrowding you do that through boundary changes, end feeder rights and no more out of bound students. [/quote]

Three responsive thoughts:  As wonderful as this sounds, smaller apartments and high-end condos in the city and houses and townhouses in the outer suburbs are not simple substitutes.  They are to a large extent separate markets driven by different consumers with different needs and preferences.

The “car-less” nirvana is not exactly careless.  Pre-covid, studies have shown that traffic in various cities was in fact higher, despite private vehicle ownership flat or even falling.  The culprit is ride sharing, newer delivery services like Door Dash and the Amazon-fueled economy and constant deliveries, all of which have added more vehicles during more hours to urban streets.

It sounds good to cite the environment, but what about the District’s environment?  During this crisis, many of our city residents are more conscious than ever of nature and the unique qualities of the District:  the openness and light enabled by our Height Act, our green space and tree canopy, our diversity of urban and semi-suburban neighborhoods and the fact that in many areas one can walk and run on sidewalks without literally bumping into others (so important right now).  This puts into stark contrast the likely impacts of the mayor’s comprehensive plan, with its emphasis on adding significant height and density in many areas that don’t have it — on these valued qualities of life in Washington DC.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics