Charlottesville’s Town Centers

Walkability????

A close examination of the Reston Town Center includes that it is — surrounded by high density apartments/condos and — parking lots. I would venture to say that 80% of the consumers in the Reston Town Center drive to the location and then walk. I wonder what the statistic is on the downtown mall. Someone has to be filling those parking garages.

Another example that is often used is Meadowmont in Chapel Hill North Carolinia. I visited Meadowmont a year ago this summer. I found it most interesting that the neighborhood pool, which is only open to residents, had no parking available in its parking lot and in fact had attendees parking on the tightly designed neighborhood streets. It seems the planners thought the parking lot capacity could be reduced because folks would walk. The opposite is the case.

I believe community pools tend to be used by younger families — those that have to haul diaper bags, water wings etc. This use is not condusive to walking even the two blocks to the pool.

Lonnie raises a number of good points. The most interesting is “but merely the way communities used to be”. Why did we develop in this way?

A fair amount of research indicates that many of these communities sprung up around train stations and along streetcar lines. People walked to their homes from the station and did not mind living in the highly dense neighborhood because there really was not an option. The streetcar went where it went and how far you walked, and in which direction, were determined by your ability to pay and the market.

The invention of the automobile, and more importantly the price point being within reach of average citizens, made the suburbs possible. No longer were those who worked in the city bound to live in the city. Some chose to stay but the vast majority given the choice, citizens chose to move where they had more space.

The question now is how to make the new town centers more attractive and a better economic equation than suburban living for the majority of homebuyers?

If we are unable to answer this question, town centers will serve a small cohort of the market.

Also Waldo had a relevant Blog entry about this a while back. It’s worth checking out, especially the comments.

Of course Pentagon Row is superior in the new-urbanist genre to RTC. It exists in a high-density subregion where people can truly live without cars (and could do so, though not as easily, before PR came along), and can access many other parts of the larger region through convenient, high-frequency mass transit. I lived within a mile of Reston Town Center for about three years, and Neil’s 80%-drivers estimate is conservative. And here’s why: you can’t go without a car in western Fairfax County, even if you do live in the nonexistent perfect new-urbanist development, because you can’t get to anywhere else easily without one. Going without a car there turns you into a resident of an over-retailed small town with a sky-high cost of living. That’s not why people move to Fairfax County.

It’s great that people are thinking about smart growth in Charlottesville, but this is not a large metropolis, and no matter how great our bus system becomes, a huge portion of the region’s population will remain unserved/underserved by it. This is not Arlington or Alexandria. We have no Metro, nor is one coming. Our population density is not that high, nor are we that rich, nor (thankfully) are we that eminent-domain-happy. No “town center” development that discourages drive-in traffic could survive here outside of very close proximity to the UVa campus and downtown (i.e. close enough for students to walk) — there’s just not enough money that can/will walk onto a property on the fringe. Let’s be realistic about the need to serve vehicular traffic and we’ll all be better off.

What I really question is selling the idea of town centers in the County. I think they make perfect sense for Crozet and Charlottesville, but I’m not sure it could work in other areas where they are being pushed. I do think better models of development are necessary, but personally I’d rather see more Preservation Development or other mechanisms that combine the best features of urban and rural spaces.

That said, I don’t think we need to toss the entire neighborhood model concept out the window either. There are feature to Developments that we really need to address. I repeatedly hear from friends who move from rural areas into subdivisions that they knew their neighbors better when they were a mile away (or more). Neighborhoods need simple features like sidewalks, community gathering spots, and other features that encourage community interaction. The old cul-de-sac model just doesn’t work, and can no longer be considered sustainable.