  Rockville (top) and Ballston (bottom), two of Washington’s best suburban TODs. |
How about a new feature for BeyondDC: The top ten list. You know the drill; I give a category and then ten good examples of things that are in that category. Everybody likes lists, right? Fun times.
I’ll be doing additional lists like this on the approximate schedule of “whenever I feel like it”, but there’s a lot of good fodder, so readers can definitely expect to see more.
For today, the Top ten suburban Transit Oriented Developments. The Washington region is famous for turning otherwise suburban areas around Metro stations into bustling urban downtowns. The following are the best of the lot. To qualify a neighborhood must be located outside the District of Columbia and must be within walking distance of a Metro station (preferably centered around one). Rankings are based on the quality of a neighborhood’s urbanism, measured subjectively according to the Three Ds theory. Size counts for something, but I’m looking more at urban quality. Number 10 is the tenth best in the region, number 1 is the best, etc.
Number 10: Crystal City
The quintessential mid-century Corbusian block of towers in the park, Crystal City is frankly awful (although the re-done Crystal Drive helps). Its saving graces are that despite pedestrian-unfriendly design, it’s got good density, a good mix of uses, and really good transit connections.
Number 9: Rockville
15 years ago Rockville probably wouldn’t have made the cut at all, but recent redevelopment has helped a ton. If they can ever redevelop that huge parking lot in the middle and improve the connection from Metro, Montgomery County’s seat of government could shoot up the list.
Number 8: Silver Spring
Strong urban pedigree and almost limitless potential are held back by the insultingly anti-urban Discovery Building, which sits dead in the center of downtown and kills what should be Silver Spring’s best block. If you didn’t have to walk through such trash to get to the better parts, it would rank higher.
Number 7: Rosslyn
Sort of a Crystal City, but with enough skyscrapers and newer infill that it’s a lot more interesting. Check back in two years after the Central Place and 1812 North Moore redevelopments are complete, and Rosslyn will be a whole new city with a vastly superior center.
Number 6: Ballston
The western anchor to Arlington’s Orange Line TOD corridor (see numbers 7, 5 and 3) is more livable and has a better mix of uses than eastern anchor Rosslyn. Stuart Street and Welburn Square are great places. Unfortunately, too much of its retail is bottled up in that darn mall.
Number 5: Court House
The seat of Arlington’s government is smaller than Ballston or Rosslyn, but has a great urban room where Clarendon and Wilson Boulevards come together for two blocks, and has more comfortable, homey character than its larger cousins.
Number 4: Friendship Heights
Technically half inside the District, Friendship Heights is a smaller, more wealthy version of Bethesda (see below).
Number 3: Clarendon
Urbanistically the best of Ornjington, Clarendon has that mix of old and new buildings that’s rare on the Virginia side of the river. It’s also here that Arlington is best implementing the urban design lessons it learned during 20th century redevelopments elsewhere in the County, like the need for architectural diversity on the ground level and that setbacks help offset skyscraper shadows. Those lessons mean Clarendon not only has a good mix of old and new, but that its new is better than the new in, say, Ballston. It also has some excellent small-scale green spaces.
Number 2: King Street
Maybe it’s the DC-like height limit, the weird street grid, or the presence of so many rowhouses nearby, but for whatever reason the area around King Street Metro in Alexandria feels more like a bona fide downtown than any other place on this list. The massive redevelopment south of Duke Street isn’t as high quality as King Street itself, but it sure has added to the activity level.
Number 1: Bethesda
The architectural diversity and quality, the density and land use, the almost European-like tangled grid of streets, the direct un-cut connections to adjacent residential neighborhoods… Bethesda is the gold standard in just about every way. A great model for developers or planning departments looking to implement TOD elsewhere (pay attention, Tysons Corner).
Just missed the cut: Pentagon City, Braddock Road, Virginia Square, Wheaton.
