Thinking generallhy about urban planning and the new master plan I'm thinking that we may very much want a viable Master plan but what in the world ma

Thinking generallhy about urban planning and the new master plan I'm thinking that we may very much want a viable Master plan but what in the world makes us think we will ever have a successful Master plan?


Where in the world would we go to look for a successful model where there is urban growth?



In my life and places I have been I can only think of Holland. The Dutch had gone through natural disasters and the ravishes of war and moved from being a agricultural country and increased in population in the fifties and emerged in the late sixties as a very pleasant country very much balanced out in terms of parks, transportation, layout of the old sections with apartments overlooking farmland.



I just don't know where we would look for examples of urban growth in Northern Virginia. Annandale where I had lived back in the fifties is horrible and I think is the worse example of an urban center in Northern Virginia.



Mclean where i had lived in the early sixties has absolutely nothing to show as a model of excellence as far as any sort of planning.



I am left to look at Vienna which seems to have some pleasant areas as I sit in gridlock traffic when going through frequently.



And all I can think of as successful locally is revitalization's of older sections of cities. I think the revitalization of the old part of Charlottesville is pleasant. The revitalization of the inner Harbor of Baltimore is pleasant allowing one to wander and find whatever one likes, if it's the old village of little Italy, the water, the diverse eating places. But they had a lot to work with initially.-Rod