More muttering about the Post

Mark Jenkins in his City Paper blog column "Streetscapes," comments on a recent Post Outlook piece that I never mustered the energy to respond to, in "High Concept." From the piece:

The redevelopment of downtown Washington was (and is) a political process, guided by political decisions made by elected officials, city planners, and zoning administrators. This statement is well-supported by the facts, and yet is continually denied by opinion pieces published in the Washington Post. (Also by its news articles, but that's another story.) Instead, such essays usually advance magic narratives in which everything can be explained by a single alchemical force. One such bewitchment is the city's height limitation, which is the focus of a piece that appeared in Sunday's Outlook section, “D.C.'s Fear of Heights.”

Jenkins makes the same point that I've made (although I probably learned it in part from him, as well as from reading Jane Jacobs and others) that the conversion of downtown into an office ghetto with few streetside entrances is what has worked to denude downtown of life (and identity).

Michael Grunwald, the Post author of the piece, isn't ready to be assigned to a new urban design beat, at least until he reads a years worth of pieces by John King (San Francisco Chronicle), Inga Saffron (Philadelphia Inquirer), Blair Kamin (Chicago Tribune), and Christopher Hume (Toronto Star) for starters.

In fact, I just dug something out of email, from February 2004, when I was thinking about organizing a "Jane Jacobs" urban issues/urban design reading group:

From wh:

Basic issue, I'd suggest, is that jj was working in the context of a matured city...old New York...with high populations and a genuine immigrant 'street culture..' whereas Washington as a city still has to be constructed: it is mature, in whatever sense that term has, only as a commuter town, with a divided social life, and virtually no actual street life..dead in the evenings, and only febrile even with a doubling of its daytime population...cf. K St...and its highly-artificial life of lawyers, financial firms and business associations. etc

My response:

WRT DC, I would argue that you are correct in terms of the inadequacies of street life in some areas, particularly downtown, but that is hardly an assessment that typifies the city -- Capitol Hill, Dupont Circle, Georgetown, etc. I disagree with you that it is because of the immaturity of DC as a city

Downtown used to be like you describe vibrant street life--I have even seen photos of F Street from September 1968 (four months after the riots!) showing big crowds. Even into the 1970s a lot of people worked downtown. However, the vitality of downtown was basically destroyed by developers constructing box-y buildings with reasonably anti-pedestrian ground floor space.

It didn't help that all the suburban Congresspeople (plus Robert Byrd) kept taking agencies and departments out of the city. Plus, the vestiges of the beliefs of the value of urban renewal (clearance) still reigned supreme. E.g., personally, I don't see what Moynihan did for Pennsylvania Avenue (although I appreciate his efforts that saved Union Station) other than make it pedestrian unfriendly and barren.

In July [2003] the Post ran a big cover story on the Monday Business section about why wasn't retail successful downtown. It seems pretty obvious to me. Downtown is basically a big unroofed mall. But it doesn't have the variety and intensity of retail that a mall does. So, if you want that kind of shopping experience, people go to the premier malls such as Pentagon City or Tysons Corner. Why go to a faux-mall downtown? Note the success of the heart of Georgetown and the relative unsuccess of the interior of Georgetown Park Mall. It evinces the same point.

Anyway, I would say that downtown is the business equivalent of what economists studying Latin America used to call an enclave economy, such as a copper mine with a railroad line direct to the sea, said railroad line not allowing any stops or promoting spillover development. Detroit is another example of the downside of overspecialization. (I am from Detroit.)

Reading the chapter on the need for old buildings in Death and Life explains the loss of vitality downtown better than I can.

However, I believe the vitality of the downtown area could be tremendously enhanced with 4 "easy" changes:

1. Open the Smithsonian museums at night till 10 pm.
2. Give a tax break to the new Landmark Cinema and the forthcoming cinemas at Gallery Place to provide night-time "matinee" pricing for films--this would help keep people downtown.
3. Get the Smithsonian IMAX theaters to do midnite showings on Fridays and Saturdays, including the Rolling Stones film, etc.
4. Make MLK a 24 hour library and put a coffee shop in the lobby.

Etc.--that's just for starters. And it is unfortunate that with the threat of terrorism, promoting more mixed use activities downtown in federal buildings isn't going to happen.

Notice that 7th Street is successful? That's because it is the only part of downtown where the historic building stock, with traditional storefronts, and display windows and entrances, and the pedestrian-oriented street rhythm remains extant.

Speaking of Reston, the success of the Reston Town Center speaks volumes about the value of mixed use. I find it ironic that the best suburban developers understand this, while city government policies favor the single-use/enclave orientation still.

Index Keywords: urban-design-placemaking