Long-awaited sprawl repair
The first building of Downtown Columbia, Maryland, is expected to be under construction in early 2013 — the first step toward realizing the dream of the late developer James Rouse of creating mixed-use town center for the 1960s new town. That vision was thwarted by single-use zoning. The town center currently consists of a massive mall surrounded by parking and a ring road — all scaled to accelerated automobile traffic. Transforming this to a walkable place will amount to “sprawl repair” on a very large scale, according to a story in the December issue of Better! Cities & Towns. The building takes up an entire block, but will be visually separated into two halves, one with ground-floor retail facing the mall. In between the building and the ring road will be a public promenade with a playground.
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• Get the December 2012 issue. Topics: Sprawl versus walkable: Housing study, Nashville code creates value, Wake up call from Sandy, Downtown Columbia, Smart growth at the polls, Buffalo code reform, Housing and driving costs, Comparing new urban and conventional development, NorthWest Crossing, Alexander's The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth
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