Reading this recent article from Federal Times about a plan for remaking downtown DC, I was struck at how familiar this sounded:
The plan is highly critical of some past development choices, particularly in the Southwest Rectangle, a clutch of 1960s federal buildings built in the concrete Brutalist style in L'Enfant Plaza just south of the National Mall. In addition to the cavernous federal buildings, the area is defined by a tangle of highway ramps and train tracks that are difficult for pedestrians to navigate.Though hailed as cutting edge when it was proposed in the 1950s, the area has "proven to undermine vibrant urban life," the report said. "Many buildings do not fully use the full capacity of their site and do not provide accessible use at the ground floor, creating a hostile pedestrian environment," the report said. "The absence of urban vitality has resulted in disinvestment and neglect."
The plan proposes to sink rail lines and highways below ground, and reclaim the street level as open space for monuments and parks or for private development as restaurants stores, offices and residences....
There are plenty of problems with this area of D.C. on a "vitality" standpoint, but the chief problem is the transportation infrastructure that chokes the area. I'm sure it was cheaper to build these roads and tracks over land in the short term, but this looks like a true "penny-wise-pound-foolish" outcome as the costs to demolish, bury, and rebuild will be significantly higher.
Are we going to be reading an article like this about Tysons Corner in a few decades? Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Europeans, with little land left to rationally develop, plan communities with 50 years in mind and spend a great deal of money to do it right the first time.
We have a lot to learn. And a lot of crooks to boot out.