Visual evidence for why I say that Silver Spring is undergoing urban renewal, not revitalization

Urban renewal generally is a land assemblage and redevelopment strategy that creates new buildings without saving old buildings. Historic preservation, an asset-based revitalization strategy, is the heart of urban "revitalization" rather than big project planning type things (e.g., attracting large office buildings such as for the Discovery Channel).

Granted in Silver Spring there are a few exceptions, the old Hecht's Building, the revitalization of the Silver Theater, the attraction of arts based organizations to the area (another asset-based revitalization strategy).

But for the most part it's a bunch of new big buildings, brutal and cold, with little in the way of active engaging street life. (And as I mentioned before, the small independent businesses are being crowded out, according to this UMD student studio report as mentioned in this press release "Study Recommends Steps to Save Silver Spring Small Businesses" and subsequent articles.)

This rendering of a new multimodal transit center for Silver Spring illustrates my point.
Construction on the complex is scheduled to begin this fall and is expected to be complete in 2009. Photo Credit: Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade & Douglas Inc.-Zimmer, Gunsul, Frasca Partnership Photo via the Washington Post.

See the Post article, "Silver Spring's Plans For Transit Center Move to Final Stages: Hub Seen as Next Step in Revitalization," for more. Note to Post editors--there is a definitional difference between the words revitalization and redevelopment.

Index Keywords: transit; urban-renewal; urban-revitalization