Can we talk?

When I launched this blog three weeks ago, I shared the first post on Facebook thusly: “A blog. A more quiet place to write. Maybe a flight of fancy, maybe something more.”

With time, it’s looking like the former.

Something that seems characteristic of blogging is the peek behind the curtain; the personal details/excuses about why the blogger hasn’t written enough or whatever. I’m trying to avoid doing that here, even while I’m clearly hinting at it.

To the extent I’ll get into more personal or the intersection of personal and professional stuff, I hope to do it in the context of issues and not as tortured rationalizations or idle naval gazing. I should stop doing both.

I expect much of whatever writing I do will deal with growth in our community, how we talk about it, and how we can embrace the opportunities it presents. It’s a complicated and charged subject—especially now—and I hope to be able to add some context and perspective to the discussion. I’ve spent most of my adult life in the thick of community development matters, and while I clearly have opinions and biases, my bigger aim is to help find ways to have better conversations about it. 

Because right now, the way we talk about development and growth is… not good. Not that it ever is, but the confluence of a new wave of activism, acute crowding in some of our schools, and the upcoming elections has pushed nuance out in favor of sloganeering and motivated reasoning, with a side of Dunning-Kruger.

I appreciate that Julia at Village Green/Town² stepped into the breach yesterday with her post “The Sweet Spot”, which wrestles with the seeming intractability of this conversation:
On the one hand, I know what communities look like when businesses feels that they are no longer commercially viable. Developers are no longer motivated to engage. It can be a vicious cycle. A lack of willingness to invest can be the kiss of death. And I know that we need a push for affordable housing and decent “starter” housing. We need to make that a priority. 
On the other hand, I do see quite clearly the overcrowding in schools that continued development has brought to our area. It seems logical to suggest that the pace of new housing should be slowed while new school construction is sped up. There are legitimate environmental concerns. And do developers pay an amount that is a meaningful contribution?  
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My conversation about development the other evening made me realize how much I want to find common ground between these two sides. What is the sweet spot between continued investment in Howard County and protecting and supporting infrastructure, services, amenities, schools, etc? It simply can’t be an either/or proposition.
It seems to me that we’ll only find that common ground when we can collectively share a common set of facts and a baseline understanding of the complexity of growth, development, and all of the intended and unintended consequences of the laws, regulations, programs, and actions we take as consumers in the real estate market and as advocates in the public sphere (collectively, “the system”).

Which brings me to something I’ve wanted to share for weeks: an article in Urban Land about Downtown Columbia called “Urbanizing the Town Center of Columbia,Maryland

As you can tell, this is written from the perspective that development is, in general, good, but if you can look past that, you’ll see that the planning and re-development of Downtown Columbia was not a hasty developer giveaway at the expense of the community. It was, and is, a process that spanned more than a decade and three Howard County Executives, involving an ongoing approval process that is lengthy, deliberate, and includes numerous opportunities for public participation.

And it is also a reflection of the tension between public values and private enterprise, a tension that rests at the heart of our growth conversations. The Downtown Columbia Master Plan balances this tension with entitlements and obligations, processes and policies, give and take. Whether it struck the right balance is, of course, debatable.

If you have not done so, I urge you to read the piece. It is comprehensive and fair, even if slanted in favor of development. Moreover, it provides insight into what it takes for a developer to take an approved plan and translate it into actual projects. Development finance and the process it takes to get a shovel in the ground is, I suspect, something that few of us fully understand.

Julia’s post yesterday ended with a quote from a mutual friend of ours about the “tyranny of the OR” and the pervasive scarcity mindset. Look around and you see this everywhere in our society today. I, too, support the idea of the “genius of the AND,” and I think what we’ve done in Columbia over the last 50 years and Downtown Columbia over the last 15 reflects that.

I don’t, however, feel that this view is shared very widely. But I’m not here to convince you to think like me, but I do hope that through better conversations and some mutual curiosity, we can start looking at the challenges posed by “or” as opportunities for an “and".

My Speakout

As much as I don't like the term "Resident Speakout" that's what it is. What follows are the remarks I delivered at last n...