Purple Line Corridor Coalition study: Same Old, Same Old | Gentrification will result from investment in transit infrastructure

This is in response to this Washington Post article, "Purple Line study: Without help, light-rail line will bring gentrification." From the article:

The 16-mile light-rail line that will connect Montgomery and Prince George’s counties — the first direct suburb-to-suburb rail line in the Washington region — is designed to help revitalize older, inner-ring suburbs while providing faster, more reliable mass transit. Some local officials and community leaders have long worried that, without attention, rising land values and rents around the 21 stations will price out business and residents, particularly in lower-income communities in Prince George’s international corridor.

Communities most at risk include Long Branch, Langley Park and Riverdale Park, study leaders said.

 

Poster board from the 2014 meetings.

The study came from the public-private Purple Line Corridor Coalition, a group composed of government officials, community activists, nonprofits, companies and academics. The group organized in 2013 to try to prevent the kind of displacement that has traditionally followed many Metro stations and new transit lines across the country.

 Um, duh.  Transit, like roads, is designed to promote real estate intensification.  It's what you call a "priming effect."  And you want that to happen, since you're spending billions of dollars on it.  

Also see "Op-Ed in Washington Post about preserving affordable housing in the Purple Line corridor (Department of Duh)" from earlier in the year on the same topic.

 

CAF Urbos light rail vehicles will be used for the Purple Line.

This entry summarizes the transit and land use recommendations I've made over the years wrt the Purple Line, but not the CDC-related one, or the need to have a preservation initiative for existing businesses.

-- "Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings," 2022

In 2014, the University of Maryland College Park Public Policy School sponsored a couple of conferences about Purple Line related issues.  

The Purple Line will be a light rail connecting the east and west legs of the Red Line, north leg of the Green and Yellow Lines, and east leg of the Orange Line Metrorail lines, as well as (through transfers) the Penn, Camden, and Brunswick lines of the MARC commuter railroad.

I was kinda surprised about the conference, because they were big on examples from Minneapolis and Denver, which have light rail lines or networks, and not the DC area, which has Metrorail and at the time, almost 40 years of experience with transit oriented development.

When they discussed affordable housing initiatives in those cities I wasn't particularly impressed, both because the projects weren't all that big (especially by comparison to Greater Phoenix, also home to light rail, ("Light rail housing fund spurs 15 projects in metro Phoenix" and "Why you don't see more vacant lots along light-rail route," Arizona Republic) or well funded, not to mention that the DC area doesn't have a particularly powerful philanthropic community--the wealthy tend to focus on projects meaningful to themselves, not others, although these days, surprisingly, Amazon--developing a headquarters in Arlington County ("Crystal City Arlington as Amazon one-half of HQ2," 2018), has committed significant sums to the preservation of affordable housing ("Bowser’s affordable housing push gets a $147M boost from Amazon," "Amazon helps nonprofit purchase Arlington building for affordable housing," Washington Post).

Anyway, my initial response--which was not acted upon--is that if you want to address affordable housing in substantive ways, you need to create a bi-county community development corporation acting in the transit shed of the Purple Line in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, to buy, hold, preserve, develop and fund affordable housing.

-- Purple line planning in suburban Maryland as an opportunity to integrate place and people focused initiatives into delivery of new transit systems"
--  "Quick follow up to the Purple Line piece about creating a Transportation Renewal District and selling bonds to fund equitable development").  

And it turns out I had written something similar in 2007!!!!!!

-- "It's time to create the "Port Authority" of Montgomery and Prince George's Counties"

That was true in 2014 and 2007, and is still true in 2022.

The biggest thing I learned from my involvement in DC urban revitalization matters was that once the velocity of development starts to change and revs up, it's too late to come up with plans, you need plans beforehand, otherwise you are reactive, not proactive and can never catch up.

The second biggest thing I learned was the need for focused and effective implementation organizations.  CDCs can be such a tool.  

On effective CDCs and economic development organizations see "The Howard and Lincoln Theatres: run them like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust/Playhouse Square Cleveland model," 2012, and the discussion of "transformational projects action planning," "Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning." 2017.

Granted for the most part DC proper doesn't have great CDCs ("The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?," 2013) with the exception of Jubilee Housing ("Building stronger community support for public/social housing," 2012) although some of the area housing CDCs, such as in Arlington and Montgomery Counties are reasonably effective.