The HooK has two excellent articles this week concerning development/growth.

There grows the neighborhood

I love this part, referencing Hollymead Town Center:

The only pedestrians — one touted hallmark of the neighborhood concept– enjoying the view are folks hurrying between car and shop.
…
Thomas says the county expects each development “to have sidewalks, and have the developments be pedestrian oriented– which is a higher standard than simply providing sidewalks.”

Asked about the sidewalks, Wood says wryly, “We don’t build sidewalks until we put in the streets.” He says Hollymead will eventually boast 2.5 miles of sidewalks.

If they are going to build auto-centric development, that is fine. (not really, but …) Just don’t sell the community on one thing and deliver another. Maybe these planners and developers are well-versed in human settlement patterns are are able to foresee that people will be drawn out of their vehicles and onto their two feet or two wheels in order to go to Starbucks, Harris Teeter and Target.

This is comforting:

Critics complaining of “Fairfaxing” or “Loudounizing” can take comfort from this. There are only 1.4 million square feet of commercial space here. To become an “edge city” requires 5 million square feet of commercial space.

Whew! I feel better now. Now, if only we could deal with the traffic in the City.

Technorati Tags: sprawl

This pretty much sums it up. Thanks to The HooK.