203a: The Vignette From Scratch

That New City Smell

The Rio and Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg, MD is a classic case of the city that has that ‘look.’ You know, analogously the only way to describe it is a newly power washed item, there is not significant wear and tear, and there is a certain loftiness in the air. As if you could drive two tractor trailers though the space and not have a single problem. It reminds me of any shopping strip that is new, except it is a city. A few miles stretching in Bethesda in Wisconsin Ave. Downtown Silver spring.

It make you wonder that if cities ever could naturally look like this. It isn’t bad, but to me is a little more off-putting. Mostly, it is a psychological issue with fewer eyes on the street. In all the specific examples, you seem to have a majority of stores without residences and more commercial chains. The lack of individuality is key, where you can in theory be dropped into any of these New Town USAs and not really know where you are.

We all know that well capitalized companies that have the diviersity of income streams from various locations, chains, brand names, and franchises will be more willing to put up capital and invest in a new area. This also guarantees name recognition, spawning not only new jobs, but places people can simply see and already identify.

But that leaves you with a void. As in Frederick, MD where the streets seem to be filled predominately with fresh small business endeavors and a few for sale leasing signs, it’s the polar opposite in these other locales. The Rio, has a potbelly, a pizza place, and chain restaurants off the boardwalk. Yes, boardwalk. It asks a new chicken/egg allegory mixed with Kevin Costner flick appeal: if you build it, do they come? Or do they come, so you build it? These places have the appeal of the item, not the city. You go to the movies, or you go to eat. At least it is designed, right?

The benefit of a place like Rio will be described in detail in another entry, but it does have a sense of place. The theatre is a central component, but the ‘city’esque feeling and genus loci is attributed to a main stretch of road, a good start. But you realize the Disneyland fraud of it all…surrounded almost completely in parking lots, this is an avenue that basically starts from a parking lot, and ends in a parking garage. The car, once again, wins this battle.

The point remains, what is the impact, spatially and socialogically of a new city. A new sequence of spaces? Centrally planned or not, designed from the first brick to the edge of each mullion or not, there is something different *gazes sharply*. I intend to find out.