I wrote the following piece in February, before the pandemic up-ended everything, and had planned to submit it as an op-ed. However, as the reality of COVID-19 start setting in, my attention and priorities shifted.
I’m sharing it now to highlight the fact that CA’s struggles pre-date the pandemic and maybe also to show that this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
The bottom line for me is that CA has lost its way, and its response to the pandemic and associated challenges has caused it to drift even further off course. Or: “CA needs leadership that is looking out for Columbia’s interests, not just CA’s…”
But you can read the whole thing and let me know what you think!
Columbia founder James Rouse still looms large over the “Next American City.” His name is invoked often, usually in a nostalgic callback to the halcyon days of the city’s birth when the visionary developer conducted a grand symphony of big ideas and bulldozers.
What is often missed is that Rouse’s greatest strength was not as a planner, businessman, or salesman—it was his perspective. Notably, it was his ability to be clear-eyed about problems of the day, pragmatic about potential solutions, and optimistic about our ability to collectively shape our futures. Rouse anticipated change and sought to steer it, building a city that could help its residents manage the uncertainty of change.
Unfortunately, Columbia hasn’t had this kind of leadership for many years. Indeed, over the last two decades, Columbia’s leaders—in particular, the elected members of the Columbia Association’s Board of Directors—have struggled both to acknowledge the world for what it is and to present a compelling vision for how Columbia could evolve to respond to our challenges.
Columbia was founded in the context of and in response to great social upheaval, but its leaders often seem unaware of the upheavals of the 2020s and the need for Columbia to respond.
Instead, we’re re-arranging tot-lots while society’s tectonic plates collide underneath.
The Columbia Association is not Columbia, to be sure. It is not a municipal government, and its elected directors are, like directors of all corporations, responsible primarily for ensuring the organization’s financial solvency. But CA enjoys the benefits of steady, dependable government-like revenue by way of its annual charge on all property owners, and it has none of government’s daunting responsibilities like emergency services, public utilities, or school funding.
With such a stable financial foundation, CA’s directors can and should focus on ensuring Columbia remains a great place to live, work, and play and that it reflects the essential values embedded in the community’s bedrock. But when faced with opportunities to guide Columbia’s future with visionary leadership, CA’s directors have abdicated these responsibilities.
For instance, starting in 2005 residents of Columbia engaged in a years-long community dialogue that lead to a new master plan for Downtown Columbia. Motivated largely by reflexive opposition to new development, CA’s directors at the time removed the organization from the planning conversation, losing leverage and a critical opportunity to help shape a master plan that would guide development of Columbia’s urban core. That plan was passed ten years ago and the Columbia Association is mentioned less than a handful of times in it, leaving the organization with almost no role or influence in the future of Downtown Columbia.
More recently, the conversation in Howard County turned to economic and racial segregation in our neighborhoods and public schools, particularly those in Columbia. While the school system’s redistricting process was incredibly contentious, an essential component of Columbia’s identity is integrated schools. And for CA, the organization founded to further the Columbia way of life, to remain silent on a matter that is essential to Columbia’s identity is a rejection of its own foundational purpose.
These are large examples, but the small ones are everywhere too. CA’s most recent capital improvement projects include an exclusive and expensive wellness retreat, a new clubhouse and restaurant at one of its golf courses, and an indoor tennis club. Not only are these risky investments in the rapidly changing fitness market, but none of these projects helped to address ongoing disinvestment in Columbia’s older villages and village centers, an opportunity lost.
What makes this especially frustrating is that CA is full of friendly, dedicated team members who take pride in their work and their community. From the operations crews to the lifeguards to the division chiefs and executives, CA staff are exemplary ambassadors for the organization and the community.
And to be sure, there are members of the board of directors who work as diligently as its staff in spite of the myopia of their colleagues. But even best board member will get bogged down in the morass of unnecessary meetings, busywork, and intra-board conflicts that have come to characterize the board’s operations.
CA has such great potential to reposition Columbia as a vanguard for how suburban life can be reimagined in the 21stcentury, a place that recaptures some of the optimistic zeitgeist of its founding, renewed for a time of even more social, political, economic, and environmental upheaval. Instead it is adrift, rudderless in ever-changing seas.
The solution is within reach, however, and it is not especially complicated. CA needs leadership that is looking out for Columbia’s interests, not just CA’s, and who recognize that this is a city that was built to anticipate change and foster positive solutions for society’s challenges.
James Rouse can no longer point to the path ahead for Columbia. And unfortunately for now, neither can CA.
