Much has already been penned about the competing interests of Washington’s urbanist groups. Specifically, about the Committee of 100 with its preservationist bent versus the blogosphere and its smart growth bent, led by Greater Greater Washington.

I’ve thought about the divide as well, and I agree with those who say that it’s the result of a massive divergence in how the older generation and younger generation think about cities.

The Committee of 100 and its preservationist brethren think about cities in terms of the mid-to-late 20th Century, when proposals for massive highway and urban renewal projects threatened to essentially bulldoze most of the city and turn it into a giant suburb. Fighting those proposals was the necessary urbanist agenda of the day, and current residents owe preservationists a great thanks for saving our city from the wrecking ball decades ago.

But the experience of fighting a never-ending rear-guard action against bad ideas left that generation neurotic about new development. The city spent so long building crap that the preservationist contingent simply can’t wrap its mind around the possibility that change might be good. 50 years of mostly horrible, anti-urban development has convinced an entire generation that all new development must be bad.

Then there’s the new order. The younger generation of which I am part. Unlike the older generations that watched livably urban cities empty out, my generation started with empty cities and has watched them fill back in. The crap of the late 20th Century is what we were born in to. It’s our starting point. Since then, almost every change to the city has been for the better. Neighborhoods have revitalized, ghettos have disappeared, transit options have expanded. The city is a far better place now than it was when my generation first started paying attention in the early 1990s, so we’re comfortable with change. We think of it as a positive force. We want more of it.

Thus the great divide. One generation’s experience tells it that change must be negative, and another generation’s experience tells it the opposite.

Only time will tell if we’ll be able to find common ground.