Tuesday, December 09, 2008

MR COG and Urban Transit-Oriented Villages


This is tentatively planned for the often touted Airport Station. It will be incredible to see the changes take place in this area over the next decade with Mesa del Sol and this urban village.

I am sitting in Seattle at the moment pondering the eventual growth of my beloved Albuquerque as it relates to Seattle. One word: DENSITY.

This city is littered with neighborhood retail in the city proper. Practically 100% void of any strip retail that our city "thrives" on for tax revenue. Seattle citizens have largely voted against the type of development that plagues our city, choosing, instead, a socially progressive, environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing urban form. It is up to us, as citizens, to get involved and become educated on how our built environment effects our lives. The baby boomers are luke warm to mixed-use urbanity, Gen X'ers are catching on, and millenials will know little else from the dense urban form. It is what today's younger generation is drawn toward.

Ultimately, the market will dictate and we'll be left with predominantly sprawling suburbs as exists today barring some massive economic boom (and skyrocketing gas prices) that seems to be elusive to our city. However, our future is in dense villages and multifamily units along transit routes. It may not be today or tomorrow but it will come. We can be proactive or reactive. The reactive approach is what got us into this mess. You choose.

5 comments:

Michael said...

Nice writing. Love to hear that you're getting up to the PacNorWest.

Tim said...

Thanks Michael. As luck would have it, I was in Seattle to find a room to rent as I'll be relocating there to begin grad school in January. Woohoo!

Anonymous said...

Congrats on Grad School. Hopefully you'll make it back to ABQ someday and you can bring some progessive Pacific NW thinking back with you.

Michael said...

Mr. Urban:

Been getting a lot of mail (about 2 pieces per week) about TIDD. Can you tell me more than their worthless website:

http://www.tiddfacts.com/

I mean, I get it, at a basic level, but I have no idea why they're trying to garner support... Is it already a done deal? Do they need more money? I don't get it.

Tim said...

Michael,

Sorry for the delay.

The fact is SunCal and Mesa del Sol don't need any more money, they're essentially milking the system to get what they can and telling us that we won't get quality development without it. TIDD's aren't supposed to be used for this. They are meant to be tools for inner-city REDEVELOPMENT.

Beyond that, I'm a big foggy on the details and I have no idea if the adjusted tax numbers, made the council, will sufficiently fund city services but I guess we'll find out.