Frontiers 6/21/09

I toured the Maple Farm TND (Traditional Neighborhood Development) today as part of my usual Sunday walk.

From the view of the frontier

Between the age of 5 and 9 I lived in what one could call the frontier area of Heidenheim, a sleepy little town beyond navigable rivers or commodities whose industrious inhabitants had transformed the place into an industrial center which exploded after WWII and doubled its size fueled by refugees from the east. My frontier was an all new subdivision on a hill where we inhabited the first finished house built by refugees from Rumania, the Rill family. We were tenants. Back then in those hinterlands, they built houses first and then roads. I spent my preschool days on bulldozers and backhoes and later my afternoons collecting building materials and running my scooter through the mud. I saw how grassland turned first into dirt and then violated with big holes for basements, rock blasting that shattered our roof tiles, then more dirt, bricks came, blocks, wood and topping out parties with funny clad carpenters balancing on ridge beams decorated with wreaths bringing out toasts to the new buildings.
The smell of freshly broken topsoil, of clay, diesel and new lumber are well engrained into my memory and so it is that I still love construction sites.
Frontiers of the possible, of the human made marching relentlessly into the natural lands, or more likely, the also manmade farm fields. There is ambiguity in this. The regret for the lost beauty of the biological land. Anticipation what will happen, what will be possible, what will be created. Then the ambiguity of the not ready yet, the still becoming building that has not yet a roof, not yet a façade, could still be beautiful, exuding complexity and radiating many possible endings. Then, next to those works in progress the completed, maybe already inhabited homes, looking stale and boring in their finishedness, not leaving any options open, trite and soon to be sullied by their occupants, and the elements.

From the View of The Urban Planner

As soon as I came to America I become a sprawl hater and it was my desire to push everything closer together to create meaningful spaces between the buildings and preserve more land. I joined the 1000 Friends of Maryland , actually became a founding Board member to reign in the endless land consumption in which Maryland had consumed more land between 1970 and 2000 than in its entire 200 plus year history prior to 1970. The 1000 Friends endorsed the Maple Farm development although it was located on farmland and not contiguous with any real town or place that had historically existed here. It lies smack between Baltimore and Washington and has no rail transit. It is just south of Columbia, another new town experiment started in the 1970ties here in Howard County, based on some garden city ideals. Now, TND. The 1000 Friends endorsed it because it appeared to be better than the usual curvy subdivision without any shopping or with a large shopping center somewhere across a huge arterial street. Maple Farm was a grid, connecting streets, no cul de sacs, alleys like in Baltimore City,
Maple farm anticipates 1300 homes, a shopping center and offices. Buildings are close together, many are apartments or townhomes, their facades are elaborate and vinyl siding exists only in the back or on sides.
With those two perspectives I visited on a beautiful Sunday morning, father’s day. Yes all roadways have sidewalks, and yes every building pretends to be of some indefinable vintage style. Plantings are immaculate and pseudo vintage lamp posts line the street. Certain compact rows of townhouses are complete and look entirely out of place with all the surrounding meadows and the overall totally non-urban emptiness. Naturally, this thing is not nearly done and is a work in progress, although judging from the grass sprouting around the parked construction equipment, progress has stopped when the economy collapsed. Here and there a bicyclist can be spotted, or kids on skateboards, mostly what passes through the stage-set are runners. The larks are singing over the adjoining meadows and a brook is gurgling swollen from the recent rains. The frontier is perfectly visible here, hard edges between the town and the fields, just the harsh boundaries that the suburb of old was avoiding with its sprawling lawns and the scattered ranchers frizzling the edges. Here a ruler drew a line, on one side orderly newness, on the other what gave this development its name, Maple Farm.
The most interesting buildings are those in progress, the completed ones are devoid of surprises fully cooked from the recipes of TND which has a rule for everything. It would be actually cool to see a rancher amidst the steep townhomes, or a California style T 1-11 single story like they were common in the beginning of Columbia. Or maybe a highrise tower like the Hannibal in Asemwald near Stuttgart, the Gabrini Green residential silo for the rich which shows that highrises can work very well if not occupied by destitutes. This, of course, is the contrarian in me talking, the one who can immediately see how tiring all this TND order can become and how far from the chaos and irregularity of a real city such planned developments are. I know also, that many cities started somewhat like Maple Farm and that patina and the wisdom of those who didn’t make the rules of the first plan will be layered on top in due time.