Why is this, and why isn’t Maryland, supposedly one of the most reliably liberal and Democratic of the blue states, further down the road toward granting same-sex couples full equality when it comes to civil marriage?

I’m not going to try to answer the first question, as anything I have to say would be pure speculation. For example, does it have anything to do with the proximity of DC as an alternative place to live, the structure of Maryland’s economy (e.g., the relative mix of professions), or Maryland’s higher proportion of Federal workers, military personnel, or people with clearances? I have absolutely no idea, and would welcome informed opinions on the subject.

As to the second question, the most prominent theory, advanced by Aaron Davis in a Washington Post article, is that Maryland is more socially conservative than its record of voting for Democrats would indicate, and that that social conservatism is then magnified by a legislature dominated by long-time career politicians not eager to rock the boat.

In general I’d conclude that Maryland does lead Virginia, but not necessarily by as much as we might think. To go back to the comparison of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage, it’s worth noting that Maryland and Virginia were the two original states to enact anti-miscegenation laws, and both kept them in place for almost three centuries. The only reason Maryland escaped having its law struck down by Loving v. Virginia was because Maryland legislators had seen the writing on the wall and repealed it a few months earlier.

Steve Charing recently asked Will our wedding bells ever ring in Maryland? That’s a question that doesn’t yet have a good answer; however I’m cautiously optimistic. Although Maryland may not be as far along as we might think in the road to acceptance of same-sex marriage, it may be far enough. Most notably, supporters of same-sex marriage now have a plurality with respect to opponents (46% to 44%, with 10% on the fence).

While this is not enough support to drive legislative approval of same-sex marriage (or even civil unions), it may well be enough to prevent roll-back of actions like Attorney General Doug Gansler’s opinion in favor of recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. In fact, the same poll referenced above showed a clear 55% majority in favor of Gansler’s action, and clearly Gansler’s action proved to be no impediment whatsoever to his re-election this fall. Given that Maryland has at least somewhat of a head start on other states in this regard, and presuming that having Maryland-recognized same-sex married couples in our midst leads to increased familiarity and acceptance on the part of Maryland voters, it may be that support for home-grown same-sex marriage may reach a tipping point sooner rather than later.

If so, will Howard County just ride the wave, or is there anyone out there who’ll play a Jim Rouse-like role in terms of getting out in front on the issue and actively working to make Howard County a preferred destination for same-sex married couples? As far as our local politicians are concerned, I haven’t had time to completely go through HoCo Rising’s exhaustive list of candidates’ websites looking for their positions on the matter. However I’ll note two things:

First, although some local Democrats picked up endorsements from Equality Maryland (Elizabeth Bobo, Edward Kasemeyer, and Frank Turner) I couldn’t find any explicit statements in support of same-sex marriage, civil unions, or other LGBT issues on their web sites. However Liz Bobo’s site does have a reference to human rights, which in this context is presumably the classic euphemism for the issue that dare not speak its name.

On the Republican side, Alan Kittleman apparently believes that the Maryland Republican party should focus on the economy and go easy on the social issues. Given the position of the national party and the feelings of Maryland Republicans (69% of whom oppose same-sex marriage), this almost makes Kittleman a flaming social liberal. Meanwhile I can’t tell what Gail Bates or Warren Miller think, since on the Bates-Miller campaign web site the Issues link doesn’t work. (Make of that what you will.)

Some of this reticence is understandable; we’re talking about an issue that is controversial and affects only a small number of people, in a time when people are more concerned about the economy and other larger issues. And as I noted above, with interracial marriage the main players in the legal sphere were the courts, with private entrepreneurs like Jim Rouse playing a positive parallel role in the social and economic spheres.

Will the courts also help bring same-sex marriage to Maryland, with the legislature finally bowing to the inevitable? Whether and when that will happen remains unknown. However if it would be a nice instance of historical congruence if full marriage equality came to Maryland by 2017, so that some marriages could be celebrated in Howard County that June, along with the 50th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia and the 50th birthday of Columbia.

As I noted previously, the US Census Bureau does not create or publish direct estimates of the LGBT population. However since 1990 the Census Bureau has surveyed the population to determine the number of unmarried partners (in addition to the data that’s always been collected on married couples), and as part of that survey has collected data on the sex of each partner. This data has in turn been used by others to create estimates of the number of same-sex couples as well as the overall LGBT population both nationally and at a state level.¹

Unfortunately these estimates have been fraught with problems (beyond just the garden-variety statistical problems having to do with limited sample sizes). In particular the Census estimates of same-sex unmarried partners were historically too high², and more recently the Census survey methodology hasn’t properly accounted for same-sex couples who were in fact married (i.e., in Massachusetts or elsewhere). The first problem was not properly corrected for until 2008.³ The second problem is being addressed in the 2010 census, when for the first time the Census Bureau will generate an official estimate of the number of same-sex couples who consider themselves to be spouses (e.g., married or in a civil union or domestic partnership arrangement).⁴

Thus only when the 2010 census results are released will it be possible to get a reasonably clear picture of how many same-sex couples (married or unmarried) exist in the US, Maryland, and Howard County. In the meantime the best public Census data is from the 2008 American Community Survey, which estimates that 0.5% of all US households consist of same-sex unmarried partners. Because the ACS estimates are based on only a small sample of the population⁵ (about 1% of all households), and because the number of same-sex couples is so small (less than 1% of all households in almost all jurisdictions), using ACS data below the national level is problematic; in many cases the margins of error on the estimates are comparable to the estimates themselves.

However we can get at least a general sense of the relative numbers of same-sex couples in various local jurisdictions by looking at the ACS estimates. As you might expect, the District of Columbia has lots of same-sex couples (about 1.4% of all households per the ACS). Montgomery County has about half that fraction (about 0.6% of all households), Howard County about a third (0.4%), and Frederick County about a quarter (0.3%). This is reminiscent of the figures on comparative ethnic diversity in Montgomery, Howard, and Frederick that I discussed in an earlier post.

Note however that unlike the situation with ethnic diversity, the proportion of same-sex couples in Howard County is actually below the overall national average. It’s not much below the national average, which makes me think that the total LGBT population of Howard County is closer to the 3% figure than to the sub-1% figure of my range of estimates in the last post. But it does put paid to the idea that Howard County is a bastion of diversity in this particular context.

Finally, note that the above Maryland counties do have higher proportions of same-sex couples than comparable counties in Virginia: Montgomery County has relatively more same-sex couples than Fairfax County (0.6% vs. 0.4%), and Howard County relatively more than Loudoun County (0.4% vs. 0.2%). At first glance this seems to be consistent with the conventional blue state vs. red state narrative: As a supposedly liberal Democratic-leaning state Maryland is presumably a more hospitable place for same-sex couples than a conservative Republican-leaning state like Virginia (where one of the Ten Commandments seems to be Thou shalt not enter into a marriage-like contract with your same-sex partner).

But wait a minute: Both Maryland and Virginia have about the same number of same-sex couples, at about 0.4% of all households (slightly under the national average). In addition, Arlington County has even more same-sex couples than DC, at 1.5% of all households, and thus seems to be more like the part of DC it once was than part of Virginia.

So what’s going on here? Why isn’t Maryland attracting more same-sex couples than it is? Why can’t Howard County, that supposed haven of diversity and tolerance, attract relatively more same-sex couples than Maryland as a whole, or the nation as a whole? And why hasn’t this supposedly ultra-liberal state enacted a same-sex marriage law, or even a law to allow civil unions? More on that in the next and final post in this series.

1. Since there are no good direct estimates of the LGBT population at the state level, the estimate of the national LGBT population (as discussed in the previous post) is apportioned into each state based on the percentage of all same-sex couples who reside in that state. For example, since nearly 15 percent of same-sex couples live in California, the estimated size of the GLB population in California is approximately 1.3 million (15 percent of 8.8 million GLB people in the U.S.). See page 4 of Same-sex Couples and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Population: New Estimates from the American Community Survey.↩

2. In many cases mixed-sex married couples responding to the surveys incorrectly entered either their own sex or the sex of their partner, causing them to be incorrectly reclassified as same-sex unmarried partners, under the assumption that a same-sex couple couldn’t possibly be married. (Or, more charitably, they couldn’t be considered married from a Federal perspective, as a result of the Defense of Marriage Act.) This artificially inflated the estimates for same-sex unmarried partners.↩

3. For a very inside baseball look at this issue, see the Census Bureau paper Changes to the American Community Survey between 2007 and 2008 and their Potential Effect on the Estimates of Same-Sex Couple Households.↩

4. See the official LGBT fact sheet for the 2010 census and the unofficial Our Families Count project to encourage people to properly identify their relationships.↩

5. See the congressional testimony by Linda Jacobsen of the independent Population Reference Bureau for an overview of problems with the ACS. Note that the ACS replaced the census long form, but has a sample size considerably smaller than the long form, even when combining data from multiple years.↩

In the context of the 1960s and 70s Rouse and Columbia were thus indeed unusual in their commitment to the cause of equal rights. How might that commitment to civic equality translate into the 21st century? According to Mildred Loving herself, one major way is to extend the right of civil marriage to same-sex couples: I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Diane Brown recently echoed this sentiment in an opinion piece in the Howard County Times.

Like all analogies the analogy between then and now is not perfect, but in general I agree that the fight for marriage equality is as worthy a cause for Columbia and Howard County in the 21st century as the civil rights movement was in the 1960s. However this is not really a blog post on the arguments for (or against) same-sex marriage. (You can find lots of the former at the Freedom to Marry site, and lots of the latter at the National Organization for Marriage site. You can also find a local perspective on same-sex marriage at Steve Charing’s OUTspoken blog.)

My goal is rather the same as in some of my other Howard County in the 21st century posts, namely to look to census and other data to put the issue into context and (where appropriate) informally test various hypotheses. In the case of same-sex marriage the types of data that are collected (or not collected, as the case may be) themselves reflect the political controversies around the issue.

To begin with, unlike being African-American, Asian-American, or Hispanic, the Census Bureau (or rather Congress, which ultimately calls the shots here) does not consider gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender to be census-worthy categories, and thus does not ask questions or publish data that would allow direct estimates of the national or local LGBT population to be made. There’s a campaign to try to change that state of affairs for the 2020 census, but for at least the next few years any LGBT population estimates using census data will have to be indirect at best. (I’ll discuss this in more detail in my next post.)

In the absence of good census data, the most widely-accepted figures on the overall LGBT population are almost twenty years old, from the National Health and Social Life Survey conducted in the early 1990s. The NHSLS data resulted in an estimate that 4.2% of the US adult population identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.¹ Another more recent survey showing similar results is the National Survey of Family Growth conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the 2002 survey 4.1% of men and women 18-44 identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual.²

A final figure comes from exit polling conducted for US presidential elections. CNN reported exit poll data in both 2004 and 2008 estimating that 4% of those voting identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Again, this is consistent with the surveys referenced above, although the exit poll data is somewhat questionable given that (at least in 2008) this particular question was asked in only a few states (see below).

In any case, let’s assume that the LGBT population in the US as a whole is about 4%. Now let’s turn to the question of more interest to us, namely what’s the estimated LGBT population in Howard County? Unfortunately the NHSLS and NSFG surveys did not include a breakdown by state, much less county. However the 2008 exit poll data does include data for Maryland, with an estimate that only 1% of Maryland voters identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, well under the estimate for the nation as a whole.³

So, again, what’s the actual percentage for Howard County? As high as 4% (or even more), as the national surveys would indicate? Or as low as 1%, as the Maryland exit poll might indicate? I suspect that the 1% figure may be low, but let’s accept it for now at least as a lower bound.

As a first estimate we can therefore assume that between 1 and 4% of Howard County adults are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. (In a follow-up post I’ll revisit this estimate.) What about non-adults, including teens under 18? My specific interest in this post is same-sex marriage, so my focus is on those members of the LGBT population who are candidates for such. Per census estimates 28.0% of Howard County residents are 19 years old or younger, and 20.8% are 14 or younger. The LGBT population that comprises candidates for same-sex marriage is thus somewhere in the range of less than 1% to 3% of all county residents.⁴

How does this compare with ethnic minorities in Howard County? The same census estimates show that the estimated LGBT population in Howard County is at least roughly comparable to the population of Chinese-Americans (2.3%), Indian-Americans (3.1%), and Korean-Americans (3.5%).

However the visibility of LGBT people and their impact on the county seems much lower than that of these other populations. Partly of course this is because LGBT Howard County residents don’t actually constitute a visible ethnic minority, but rather can be found in all ethnic groups. I also suspect that this is because (living in Howard County in the first place) they’re suburbanites just like everyone else. They may go into Baltimore or DC for the social scene or special events, but for the most part they’re going to live relatively typical low-key suburban lives.

I also suspect that like everyone else a fair proportion of the LGBT population in Howard County is going to want to do typical suburban things like settling down with a partner and raising a family. I’ll explore that topic further in my next post.

2. In the NSFG survey 2.3% of men 18-44 identified themselves homosexual and 1.8% as bisexual, for a total of 4.1%. The corresponding figures for women 18-44 were 1.3% and 2.8%, again for a total of 4.1%. As with the NHSLS survey, there was no option to identify as transgender. See Advance Data No. 362, Tables 12 and 13.↩

3. By comparison 5% of the polled voters identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual in California and Massachusetts, and 3% in Illinois and New York—the only other states where this question was asked.↩

4. In essence I’m assuming for simplicity that 25% of Howard County residents are children not yet old enough to marry, leaving 75% of county residents as candidates for marriage. If, for example, GLBT individuals are 4% of that 75% adult population then they comprise 4% times 75% or 3% of the total population.↩

However I don’t think things are quite that simple. In particular, part of the Columbia (and, by extension, Howard County) vision is the idea that we live in a place where neighborhoods are real neighborhoods, where people know, like, trust, and work with each other, and where they feel a sense of commitment and belonging to the community they live in. This sense of social cohesion and personal investment in the community is part of what’s referred to as (positive) social capital. In a Howard County context social capital is what makes choose civility a realistic aspiration and not an empty slogan.

Unfortunately, as shown by recent research by Robert Putnam (of Bowling Alone fame), increased ethnic diversity is associated with lower trust (both between ethnic groups and within them), lower civic participation (as measured by rates of voting, volunteering, etc.), and a general hunker[ing] down in which people to some extent withdraw from civic life. In other words, instead of having a positive impact on social capital (as the standard diversity is good for us storyline would suggest), ethnic diversity appears to instead have a negative impact.

One can imagine what people like Pat Buchanan would make of this finding. (Actually, we don’t have to imagine it.) However Putnam’s thesis is more nuanced and hopeful than that. His central argument is that ethnic diversity doesn’t come for free, it is nonetheless worth pursuing (for a variety of reasons), and we need to actively work to realize its benefits. (For details see Putnam’s paper, E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century; as Albert Ruesgas notes, it’s quite readable and well worth reading in its entirety.)

That increased ethnic diversity might negatively affect social capital is plausible from an evolutionary point of view, if people’s willingness to engage in various types of reciprocity first arose within families (per kin selection theory) and then was later extended to more extended families, tribes, and larger but still ethnically homogeneous units. Living in an ethnically diverse environment is a relatively recent phenomenon in evolutionary terms and it would be no surprise if we hadn’t yet fully adapted to it. In more recent times it’s almost conventional wisdom that ethnically homogeneous countries are able to sustain larger and more comprehensive welfare states (see for example, the Scandinavian countries, Japan, and others). Presumably this is a function of the populace in these countries having a stronger feeling that we’re all in this together.

So why bother trying to make our county (and our country) more diverse? That something is not natural, in the sense that evolution didn’t fully prepare us for it, is no argument against it. There are a host of things we do that aren’t natural from this point of view, including engaging in agriculture (or manufacturing, or knowledge work), reading and writing, and living in cities or suburbs. We’re not compelled to follow the dictates of biology if there are good reasons for us to live in more diverse societies.

In his paper Putnam advances a number of arguments on this front, most being variants on the claim that immigration and diversity in general increase regional and national creativity and economic growth. I’m sympathetic to these arguments, especially those related to immigration as a way to maintain a relatively young labor force that can offset the effects of an aging population. However one can quibble about various aspects of these arguments, and I haven’t yet reached a point where I can sort out the various factors and come to a personal judgment on the matter. (I may revisit this topic in future.)

Even if the jury is still out on the economic benefits of diversity, economics is not destiny any more than biology is. A large part of the acceptance and promotion of diversity I think simply comes down to a question of national and personal identity: At the national level the United States has traditionally been a country populated via immigration, with people actively choosing to identify as Americans as opposed to being born into a long-standing ethnic nation united by common ancestry, language, and culture. At a personal level that means that other Americans aren’t necessarily going to look like you (or vice versa), and neither they nor you are any less real Americans because of that fact.

At a personal level living in a diverse society can also enter into your own sense of who you are and what your place in society is. This struck me when I first visited Japan, and more recently when I’ve revisited my home town in Kentucky: After living in the Washington/Baltimore area for many years, and also after spending a lot of time in places like Silicon Valley, being in a more homogeneous social milieu now seems somewhat off-putting to me. Speaking personally I would now choose to live in a more diverse community, even if there were potential downsides to doing so (just as, for example, many people choose to live in cities even though they’re more crowded and noisy).

So let’s assume that (for whatever reasons) it’s a good thing that Howard County is somewhat ethnically diverse, and let’s also assume that the county’s diversity will continue to grow over time. If Putnam’s findings are applicable to Howard County (and I have no reason to believe that they’re not) what are their implications for the county?

The first is simply that we need to be realistic about the difficulties inherent in building social capital in a more diverse community, and patient about the time it will take to fully assimilate those who immigrate to the county. As noted in a recent op-ed by Putnam and Jeb Bush (yes, that Jeb Bush), assimilation has always been slow and contentious, with progress measured not in years but in decades.

Bush and Putnam give the example of German-Americans, many of whom remained in German-speaking enclaves throughout the 19th century and didn’t significantly assimilate until the early 20th century. This hits pretty close to home for me, since my ancestors on both sides migrated from Germany to the Cincinnati area in the middle of the 19th century; over the years Cincinnati supported 176 different German-language newspapers, the most prominent of which didn’t cease publication until the 1960s.

Thus if you’re freaked out by seeing all the signs in Korean along Route 40, or by being in stores and restaurants and listening to conversations you can’t understand, you’d do well to take a deep breath and try to calm yourself down a bit; those signs and those conversations are probably going to be there for quite a while.

The second implication is that decreased social capital combined with the ongoing slowdown in the national and regional economy will make it increasingly difficult to muster support for government spending intended to improve overall social welfare. This is not just a question of people asking Why are you taxing us to do things for them? Recall that Putnam found that increased diversity was correlated with decreased trust even among members of the same ethnic group. Thus it’s also a matter of people being more likely to ask, Why are you taxing us, period?

This is why although I’d be considered reasonably liberal when it comes to questions of social justice, I also believe strongly that government should exercise fiscal prudence wherever possible; otherwise it risks losing its legitimacy and endangering its ability to provide for the common good at exactly those times when providing for the common good is most necessary. We’ve seen this scenario play out in places like California, and we may end up with another example in our own backyard. If indiscriminate anti-tax and anti-government sentiment then combines with extreme nativism (a phenomenon not exactly unknown in American history) the result could prove especially noxious.

Another implication is that we should consider having an open civic conversation about an immigration strategy for the county. As with economic growth, some immigration happens for reasons that are beyond our local power to affect. However there are other cases where we may be able to help shape future immigration, through activities analogous to those employed by economic development agencies. For example, do we want to encourage immigrants with particular skill sets to move to the county? Do we want to encourage immigrants from certain countries? These are questions worth discussing, and questions I may return to in a future post.

The final implication is that those of us who feel positively about ethnic diversity and growing Howard County via immigration need to do what we can to help fully integrate newcomers into the community and rebuild depleted social capital. Bush and Putnam provide an overview of some ways to do this, tilted toward things that can be done by government (e.g., through social services, the school system, etc.) or third sector organizations like FIRN, the various ethnic community associations, and others.

However at its heart social capital is created by person-to-person interactions, and so individual initiatives are key. Some people will play an outsized role in that, like the bridge figures and xenophiles that blogger Ethan Zuckerman has written about. (As Zuckerman puts it, Bridge figures build bridges between cultures, and xenophiles walk across them.) As for the rest of us, even the most mundane actions can have meaning; for example, translating a restaurant’s Chinese menu may seem trivial, but if it helps more people experience the authentic food that’s part of a group’s culture then that’s a step forward worth taking.

In the end the old adage holds true: There is no free lunch, and if you want something you’re going to have to work for it. Building a new community that could at least partially transcend historical divisions of race in America was worthy work for the pioneers of Columbia. Extending that community to include people who arrive here from the four corners of the earth will be worthy work for those of us who live in Howard County at the dawn of the 21st century.

Simply stated, we are color-blind, [Jim Rouse] wrote in a 1967 memo to Columbia developers. This means that every person or family coming to Columbia to seek a lot, an apartment, a house; to start a business; to play golf, tennis, ride horseback, sail, swim, or use any other facility open to the public will be treated alike regardless of whether the color of his skin is white, black, brown or yellow.

As the article notes, given the state of the country at the time this commitment to diversity and tolerance was worthy of note. But how might this translate to the 21st century?

Let’s do a reality check against the census data. The main categories I’ll look at are African-Americans, Asian-Americans, multiracial persons, and Hispanics (who may be of any race—the Census Bureau treats this as a cultural and not racial category). These groups form 16.6%, 11.2%, 2.7%, and 4.7% of Howard County’s population respectively, or over a third of the total population assuming minimal overlap in the groups.

(Note that you can’t necessarily just add the numbers due to the potential for double-counting; e.g., someone could identify as both African-American and Hispanic, or as both African-American and multiracial. I’ve attempted to minimize overlap by counting as African-Americans and Asian-Americans only those identifying themselves as being of one race. Note also that these numbers are lower than the numbers in the article quoted above, although they apparently used similar census data. At least part of this discrepancy is probably due to my using figures for Howard County as a whole as opposed to just Columbia, and another part due to my using the lower single race figures for African- and Asian-Americans.)

We could compare these numbers to the figures for the US as a whole (12.3% African-American, 4.4% Asian-American, 2.2% multiracial, and 15.1% Hispanic), but I think a more useful comparison is with other local jurisdictions. For example, if we look at the comparable census data for Montgomery County we see that African-Americans make up 16.1% of the population, Asian-Americans 13.1%, multiracial persons 2.4%, and Hispanics 14.4%. Howard and Montgomery thus have similar diversity with respect to the non-Hispanic population, with Montgomery being more diverse with Hispanics included in the mix.

However a better comparison is probably with Frederick County, like Howard a semi-rural county adjacent to Montgomery and tied to the Washington-Baltimore regional economy. According to its census data Frederick County’s proportion of African-Americans is half of Howard’s (8.3% vs. 16.6%), its proportion of Asian-Americans a third of Howard’s (3.6% vs. 11.2%), and its proportion of multiracial persons two-thirds of Howard’s (1.8% vs. 2.7%); however Frederick County’s proportion of Hispanics is somewhat higher than Howard’s (5.6% vs. 4.7%).

So the image of Howard County as a relatively diverse jurisdiction appears to be at least somewhat true: relative to a similarly situated suburban county Howard County has a much higher proportion of both African-Americans and Asian-Americans. The former is presumably due in large part to the relatively welcoming environment Columbia offered African-American and mixed-race couples beginning in the 1960s, and the latter due to multiple waves of immigration from Korea, mainland China and Taiwan, India, and other countries beginning in the 1970s and continuing through today. (The report Howard County’s Foreign-born Community: Dimensions, Growth and Implications discusses immigration to Howard County in more depth.)

Looking back at the data from the 1990 census, we see that Howard County’s African-American population has grown relatively slowly (from 14.1% in 1990 to 18.0% today) while the Asian-American and Hispanic populations have about doubled (from 5.2% in 1990 to 12.2% today for Asian-Americans, and from 2.4% to 4.7% for Hispanics). (Note that the multiracial category was not added until the 2000 census, so in order to compare the 1990 values to the 2006-2008 values I am here counting as African-American and Asian-American those individuals who identified themselves as being multiracial in addition to being African- or Asian-American.)

Immigration thus now seems to be the primary driver of increased diversity in Howard County. This changing face of the county is reflected on the cover of the most recent issue of Howard Life magazine, a promotional publication put out by Howard County Tourism. Tourism brochures reflect not only how we wish others to see us, but also how we wish to see ourselves. Here Howard County portrays itself as a place where a Korean-American couple can find success as professionals and small-business owners, and with their daughter can enjoy the best that Columbia and Ellicott City have to offer. Per the magazine they love living in Howard County, and we’re glad they do.

So, this is all good, and we can continue marching into the 21st century as one big happy diverse family, with our only concern being keeping track of our expanded ethnic restaurant options. Right? I’ll come back to that question in my next post.

I was reminded of this topic when HoCo Rising commented on (but forgot to link to) a Baltimore Sun article on David Thalheimer and his candidacy to the Howard County Board of Education. So I thought it was worth revisiting the subject (and of course recycling my comments saves me from having to write a post from scratch).

53 Beers on Tap’s arguments for an elected school board basically boiled down to the following:

• Appointed positions equate to political patronage …
• Elected school board positions allow an opportunity for contrary and/or innovate ideas in education to come to the forefront.

In response to the first point, one could also argue that elected positions equate to political pandering and special-interest tinkering. (For example, witness the various instances of right-wing school board members trying to introduce intelligent design into biology classes, or analogous behavior on the left-wing side.)

In response to the second point, by this logic we should elect every key county position—chiefs of police and fire departments, heads of public works and parks and recreation, and so on—in order to allow an opportunity for contrary and/or innovate ideas … to come to the forefront with respect to policing, fire prevention, recycling, parks, and so on. But that way lies madness. The fact is that we as taxpayers are paying taxes to fund an overall set of county services, and I think it makes sense to have a single point of accountability (in the form of the county executive) for making sure those funds are spent wisely and effectively. Most voters, including me, do not have the time, energy, or background to make an informed decision on each and every elected position, which means that in practice the more secondary elected positions like school board will end up being decided by a minority of voters that is not necessarily representative of voters as a whole.

If we want innovation in education, then I suspect a more realistic approach is to put in place an overall framework by which decentralized innovation can occur at the level of individual schools, e.g., through magnet schools within the traditional public system, charter schools outside the public system, or even at the level of individual students, e.g., homeschooling options, online options (like Florida Virtual School), etc. I think the chances of a good framework for innovation being put into place are better if it’s attempted by a single elected official with an overall mandate (again, the county executive) rather than by a multi-person school board that is vulnerable to being overly-politicized, split between uncooperative factions, and micro-managing the school superintendent.

Now, having said this, it’s worth giving some space to opposing views that I found in a quick Google search. For example, the Virginia ACLU advocates elected school boards based on the general principle that the more democracy, the better and also based on the historical use of appointed school boards in Virginia to institute and reinforce racially discriminatory policies.

The first point I’ve addressed above. The second point echoes controversies elsewhere about whether electing school boards at large (rather than by district) unfairly deprives minorities of representation on the board. The Viriginia ACLU argument presumes that such policies of discrimination are still active, and an elected school board is needed to counter them. Is this really the case in Howard County?

Closer to home, in the Baltimore Sun Gregory Kane has claimed that an elected school board will provide greater accountability. But again, why can’t that accountability reside in a mayor or county executive? Secretary of Education Arne Duncan seems to agree, particularly with regard to large urban school systems like Baltimore city’s:

I saw firsthand that a mayor’s influence over a troubled big-city district can be a powerful tonic for the local economy and for school reform. …

In troubled big-city districts, capable and committed mayors often are better-situated than a school board operating as a solo entity to challenge the status quo and push for transformational reform. Mayors can facilitate the cradle-to-career health and social service networks that support student learning.

Duncan doesn’t blame elected school boards as the root cause of problems in education, but he also doesn’t uncritically accept arguments in favor of them:

Elected boards are not the cause of the failures of urban school systems. Yet too many big-city districts today suffer from frequent turnover of superintendents, school boards dominated by adult interests, and pass-the-buck blame games for stagnant or failing student performance.

To be sure, the vast majority of school systems today still have elected boards—and most work fine. A well-run school board that works cooperatively with a good superintendent can do a great deal to boost student learning. Upwards of 95 percent of the nation’s 14,500 school districts currently are managed by elected school boards—a fact that is not going to change anytime soon. …

Yet if speculation about the obsolescence of elected school boards is exaggerated, it is also the case that boards cannot continue to blindly contend that they are simply misunderstood institutions who are the ultimate arbiters of participatory, grassroots democracy.

Duncan goes on to review the history of why and how school boards came to be elected. Like voter ballot initiatives and forms of direct democracy, elected school boards gained prominence as an element in the Progressive movement’s fight against control of government by corrupt elements, and like ballot initiatives, have since given rise to their own set of problems.

Duncan concludes:

Mayoral control is not the solution to the woes of big-city school districts, any more than elected school boards are the cause of urban ills. But it can be a critical first step to overhauling a failed status quo.

Mayoral partnerships with school boards have shown great promise in the last decade. I hope more mayors opt for this approach in struggling big-city districts like Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Detroit. Turning schools over to the mayor is by no means the sole prescription for reforming large urban districts. But continuing the fickle tinkering of the past is a step backwards. Our children in failing urban schools deserve better.

Howard County obviously is not in the position of a Baltimore city or Washington DC where things have gotten so bad that radical reform of the school system is seen as the only way forward. However even if things seem to be going relatively well with Howard County schools I think it’s still worth looking at these typically unexamined assumptions about how the school system should be governed, especially as we head into an era of fiscal turbulence that will put a strain on the system as it’s evolved thus far.

Your thoughts?

I previously blogged about income inequality in Howard County. The takeaway from those posts is that Howard County has less income inequality than the US as a whole, a status it shares with several other Washington area jurisdictions; this isn’t really a result of the Columbia vision but is simply a consequence of Howard County’s geographical location in an area flush with Federal spending.

However although Howard County didn’t do anything special to get into this position, we can certainly discuss where the county could or should go from here. One question of particular interest (at least to me) is whether Howard County’s low income inequality is also a function of the difficulty that low-income families have in affording life here. In other words, is the high cost of living in Howard County in effect removing a whole stratum of society from the income inequality calculations?

For example, per the 2008 American Community Survey estimates Howard County has a Gini coefficient of only 0.38 compared to 0.45 for Montgomery County. (By comparison Baltimore city has an estimated Gini coefficient of 0.50.) Given that the two counties have relatively similar economies, this difference is possibly at least partly attributable to the presence of concentrations of lower-income families around Silver Spring and elsewhere in Montgomery.

If true, this means that although Howard County has a lower degree of income inequality it may be no more egalitarian in outlook than Montgomery County, and may in fact be less so; as an apposite quote from Wikipedia notes:

Care should be taken in using the Gini coefficient as a measure of egalitarianism, as it is properly a measure of income dispersion. For example, if two equally egalitarian countries pursue different immigration policies, the country accepting [a] higher proportion of low-income or impoverished migrants will be assessed as less equal (gain a higher Gini coefficient).

For country we can here substitute county and for immigration inward migration in general (including from other counties and states), and thus capture what’s possibly going on.

The Census Bureau’s more detailed data on household income lend some support to the above hypothesis. The highest-earning households in the bottom 20% (first quintile) in Montgomery earn about 15% less than the comparable households in Howard. This gap shrinks as we move up the income scale, until we reach the highest earning households in the bottom 80%, whose household incomes in Howard vs. Montgomery are almost identical.

Above that point Montgomery County moves ahead (as it were), so that the lowest earning households in the top 5% of households in Montgomery have household income about 11% higher than the corresponding households in Howard. (Note however that this result is a bit shaky due to the very high margin of error for the Howard County estimate.) So the broad middle classes in both counties (second through fourth quintiles) appear to be approximately equally well off, with Montgomery appearing to have relatively more poverty at the low end of the income scale and (possibly) relatively more affluence at the top end.

So, is Howard County hosting its fair share of the low-income population of Maryland and, if not, should we be doing more?

To answer the first question: The poverty rate in Howard County (i.e., the number of people living below the poverty line) is 4.3% (from census data), while the poverty rate in Montgomery County is 5.8% (from the same data source). The same source has the poverty rate for Baltimore City at 19.2%, and that for Maryland as a whole at 8.2%.

Let’s leave aside the exact poverty rates (which depend on how exactly one defines poverty—a subject of some controversy) and look at the poverty rate in Howard County relative to other nearby jurisdictions and to Maryland as a whole. If we couch this as a fair share issue then we would conclude that Howard County is not pulling its weight in terms of housing lower-income families: In percentage terms it has about half as many lower-income people as Maryland overall, about 25% less than Montgomery, and a whopping four to five times less than Baltimore city.

Should we be doing more to make it possible for lower-income families to live in Howard County? I think it’s natural to want to answer yes, but in practice I think there are limits to the extent to which we could do this. In particular the suburban nature of Howard County means that it’s difficult to live and (especially) work here without having a car; this imposes a cost burden that many families aren’t able to bear, especially if multiple members of the household need to work in order to make ends meet, and thus need multiple vehicles.

As HoCo Rising recently noted, mass transit is the best social program that can be implemented to raise the position of the poor and under-privileged. It enables people to get to work at low cost, which is often a prohibition to finding work in the first place. Unfortunately Howard County doesn’t have true mass transit now, and quite possibly will never have it. Certainly Howard will never be able to match the mass transit possibilities of Montgomery County, where lower-income workers have comparatively easy access to a much wider variety of employment opportunities in and around DC.

I am therefore skeptical of both the feasibility and desirability of making Howard County a haven for a population of lower-income families much larger than that already present in the county. It does such families no favor to be stuck in a location where they’re cut off from employment and other opportunities due to lack of adequate transportation options and thus are socially isolated from their fellow county residents. As I noted in my 21st century suburb post, I think a better approach is to make sure that the county has a suitable set of affordable neighborhoods that working families of modest but not minimal means can realistically aspire to live in, and a range of employment opportunities to help make that possible.

This doesn’t mean that every family will be able to (or should be able to) live in every neighborhood in Howard County, but every family willing and able to make the effort should be able to live in a neighborhood that feels like Howard County and partake of what the county has to offer. That includes having access to a school system with a level of funding that allows it to continue its relative level of excellence (a point I addressed in my previous post), and access to employment opportunities that can support at least a lower middle class existence (a point I’ll address in a future post).

As for improving the lives of the truly poor (those whose incomes can’t stretch far enough to support residing in the suburbs), I think that will be best done by improving employment prospects and educational opportunities in the center cities, and better integrating their poorer sections into the overall regional economy. I don’t have any solid ideas to offer here, so I’ll refrain from making any facile comments. However to the extent that government funding can help (which is probably somewhat but certainly not totally) I think it’s perfectly consistent with my own sense of social justice to have my state and Federal taxes supporting that effort. If we can’t make it possible for some of our fellow Marylanders to live in Howard County, we can at least try to help them out where they are.

I had visited Kentlands back when we lived in Montgomery County and the then-new development was being hailed as the next big thing in suburban community planning. There were a few houses, a couple of community center facilities (adapted from existing structures), a school, and that was about it. Later I read about a K-Mart and Lowes being built between Kentlands and the adjoining highway, an event criticized as a betrayal of the Kentlands design principles of walkability and human scale development.

Well, having driven around Kentlands today I can say that at least to me the reality of Kentlands is more interesting and even attractive than either the hype or the hate would suggest. True, there’s the aforementioned K-Mart and Lowes in Kentlands Square, a typical big-box development, albeit with a bit more design flair than most. There are also the expected houses, townhouses, and apartment buildings (the largest thing in the immediate neighborhood in terms of scale). But the most interesting thing in my opinion was Market Square, a low-rise retail development located right next to the apartments and townhouses.

It seemed like a nice variegated human-scale development, someplace you could drive into (like I did) and park at, or just stroll to from the neighboring apartments and townhouses. It was a little bit messy in terms of the street layout, which seemed like a hybrid of a central rectilinear grid with more suburban-like curviness around it. The architecture was pleasant without being truly distinguished, and in a couple of places was a bit jarring. Most notably, next to the residential area there was a transitional row of buildings that contained retail shops but that looked like re-purposed townhouses, complete with that blank-looking siding-covered back end that a lot of today’s townhouses have. I don’t know if that was done deliberately to echo the real townhouses, or if the popularity of the retail spaces led the developers to convert some planned townhouses for retail use.

If the latter, it’s an indication of the popularity of Market Square, which seemed well-populated with a mix of people shopping, eating out, and generally larking about. You’d never mistake Kentlands for a real city or a real small town, but at least to my ignorant eyes it seemed like a place with some vitality, someplace I wouldn’t mind living in or visiting. It was definitely suburban in character, but it had that better suburb vibe I’ve been going on about.

On the drive home I took the back way through Montgomery County to avoid the beltway and ended up driving down MD 216 through Fulton. I couldn’t help contrasting where I’d just been with Maple Lawn, Howard County’s own Kentlands manqué. Even allowing for the relative age and build-out of the two developments, the comparison was not favorable to Maple Lawn.

The biggest thing that struck me about Maple Lawn is that it’s a supposedly walkable community with no place to actually walk to. In Kentlands you could drive to Market Square if you lived elsewhere, but if you actually lived in Kentlands it doesn’t seem too much of a hike to walk over to Market Square and have a burger at Five Guys or whatever. However in Maple Lawn, for whatever reason (because the development has power lines running down the middle?) the residential area is totally isolated from the office and retail area; a local wanting to stroll over to Looney’s Pub to watch the NBA finals or have some ice cream at Maggie Moo’s would face a walk of almost a mile.

This may account for some of the failure of Maple Lawn to generate more traffic for now-closed restaurants in the development like Oz Chophouse or Trapeze: If a Kentlands resident starts walking over to Market Square, then for sure they’re going to end up shopping or eating there. But if a Maple Lawn resident has to get in the car anyway to go to a Maple Lawn restaurant or shop, then they’re quite likely to change their mind in the process and drive somewhere else in the county.

On the way home I also drove through the center of Rockville and took a swing by the new town center development. Those who know Rockville will recall that Rockville had a past downtown disaster in the form of the Rockville Mall, an indoor mall in a faux-Brutalist idiom (in my opinion one of the worst movements in 60s and 70s architecture—which is saying something—and one of the worst possible choices for a retail center). Much of it is still there, having been converted to government office space, and the hopes of Rockville now rest with the new Rockville Town Square development a couple of blocks north, designed to provide a high-density transit-oriented environment (though it’s further away from the Metro station than the old Rockville Mall).

Frankly I was unimpressed at first glance. In driving by Rockville Town Square the buildings seemed rather blank, cold, and forbidding. The most prominent features I recall seeing were entrances for underground parking garages—a sure turn-off for the typical suburbanite, who’s been spoiled by surface parking lots and primed by Hollywood action movies to know that nothing good can come of entering an underground garage.

I was about to give up on it when I decided to leave MD 355 and other main streets and go down a side street. I then discovered that in the center of the development (you know, where nobody driving by can see it) there was a short street (perhaps a hundred yards or so) that had a reasonable facsimile of an urban streetscape, including some shops, restaurants and a new library with a nice little public courtyard. It was nice, but it seemed out of place, and I had to wonder how popular it really is.

I think Kentlands, Maple Lawn, and Rockville Town Square have some basic lessons to teach us about development in the suburbs, lessons that are applicable to the future Columbia Town Center development. Maple Lawn (at least in its present form) tries to follow the new urbanism template, but perpetuates the traditional suburban separation of residential and commercial development and thus forces even its residents into their cars. Rockville Town Center goes in the other direction: it strives to replicate a high-density urban milieu at the expense of turning off suburbanites who by necessity may have to drive there.

Kentlands is by no means perfect, but as a suburbanite it felt comfortable and reassuring while offering an experience that is a step up from your typical suburban community. It is relatively discoverable by car, and when driving into the development it offers a nice transition from county four-lane highway to central boulevard to smaller side streets to small surface lots or on-street spaces, from whence you can walk to your destination and stroll through a relatively enticing and human-scale streetscape. I hope that Columbia Town Center will be able to replicate the experience.

First, noted without comment, from a blog post by Wordbones about his attending a fundraiser for Dennis Schrader:

There were also people at the event enlisting signatures for the petition drive to put the Taxpayer Protection Initiative on the ballot this fall. The [Republican] party faithful I spoke with last night were somewhat divided on the wisdom of this effort.

Second, I was at the Columbia lakefront today attending Lakefest events, and on my walk back to my car encountered a couple of people soliciting signatures for the Taxpayer Protection Initiative. This was my first encounter with the TPI in person (as it were), and unfortunately I ended up expressing my opposition to the initiative in what I realized (as soon as the words were out of my mouth) were inappropriate and disrepectful terms. The folks soliciting signatures were enduring a hot day in the sun working for a cause they believed in, and regardless of my opinions of that cause they certainly deserved far better than getting a verbal upbrading from me. So, TPI petition folk, whoever you are, please accept my sincere apologies for my rude behavior.

I was prompted to one final thought on the wisdom of the Taxpayer Protection Initiative by Alan Klein’s proposal (in his county council campaign announcement) that certain services, such as a basic grocery store be considered required elements in a Columbia village center [emphasis added]. I had previously identified as one flaw of the initiative that it didn’t address stealth tax raises in the form of excessive user fees that might charged by the county to make up for the inability to raise additional tax revenue.

Klein’s comment points up another way for the county council to make an end run around the Taxpayer Protection Initiative, namely by imposing unfunded mandates on county businesses and individuals, in other words implementing particular policies by pushing all the costs onto the private sector.

In some cases it makes sense for the county to require that businesses or residents bear the cost of certain provisions. For example, I have no problem with developers being required to assist in paying for roads or sewage facilities that are made necessary as a direct result of their projects being built. However if there are artificially-imposed barriers to raising taxes then that will encourage politicians to take government-imposed mandates well beyond what can be justified, distorting the market and limiting liberty in the process.

For example, what Alan Klein is proposing to do with respect to mandating inclusion of groceries in village centers is in effect to force the owners of the village centers to shoulder the cost burden of implementing Klein’s particular vision of social justice. As I noted in my blog post on this topic, assuming for the sake of argument that there is a genuine public need that needs to be addressed, I think it is more honest and arguably less costly to address it via direct subsidies funded by general tax revenue.

I’m not generally in the habit of giving unsolicited advice to Howard County Republicans, but I’ll repeat what I wrote previously: If you are sincere about pursuing the stated goals behind the Taxpayer Protection Initiative then you should forget this initiative and just work to elect more Republican candidates to the county council. (You don’t even necessarily need a majority; assuming Courtney Watson is reelected, based on her past statements and votes I suspect she’d be willing to join you in at least certain instances where you feel that county government spending has gotten out of hand and needs to be reined in.) Tell those poor people I abused to get out of the hot summer sun, and put them to work for a more worthy cause.

• It was a better suburb, relative to other suburbs.
• It had a more socially diverse and inclusive environment, again relative to other suburbs.
• It had a prosperous economy driven by steadily growing government spending.

No sooner had I done that post than the Columbia 2.0 blog quoted Jim Rouse on the first goal of Columbia: “To provide a real City – not just a better suburb … [emphasis added]. It was as if Rouse himself had risen from the grave to contradict me. (And wildelakemike further reinforced the point in his comment on my post.)

Well, far be it from me to do battle with the ghost of Jim Rouse and the very much alive wildelakemike, but I will stand by my comment in response to wildelakemike:

First, Columbia’s city-like aspects, even if they’d been expanded, strike me as basically a suburban take on a city: higher density, yes, but at heart a tamed version of what an actual city would be like. … It’s similar I think to what Rouse’s festival marketplaces turned out to be, namely an urban concept reimagined to appeal to suburban sensibilities.

Second, whatever Rouse’s original intentions regarding higher-density, they were not followed through on. From my point of view this indicates that creating a new American city was in the end not essential to the view of Columbia as it evolved in the minds of its developers and its residents.

Whatever happens with town center redevelopment or development elsewhere in Howard County, Columbia is certainly not going to turn into a city like Baltimore. It’s not even clear that Columbia will or could become a city like Bethesda or Rockville. (Most notably, the prospects for a true mass transit system in Columbia are iffy to say the least.) And of course Howard County as a whole will almost certainly remain predominantly suburban in character, no matter what happens in Columbia proper.

But that’s OK. A lot of people like the suburbs, and even allowing for higher gas prices and other factors it’s likely that suburban life will continue to be attractive to many. The key for Howard County is to continue to be a better suburb: better than it is now, better than other Baltimore-Washington suburbs as they are today, and better than those other suburbs as they might evolve in future.

How might this be done? As will become apparent, I don’t know a lot about the fine points of suburban planning (although I may try to learn more if I stay interested in this subject), but here are some off-the-cuff ideas, offered not because I think they’re authoritative answers but more in the spirit of encouraging constructive dialogue:

Maintain relative advantages in the core suburban selling points. I see the two most important of these being security and education: Having a (perceived to be) safe environment in which to raise children, coupled with a taxpayer-supported school system to provide them a (perceived to be) good education. (I say perceived to be because perception and reality are not always in sync; see my comment below.) The main task here is to preserve these attributes in a time during which the county will likely come under increased fiscal pressure due to rising costs and an economy that will likely be relatively stagnant compared to past years.

This doesn’t mean blindly continuing business as usual in terms of funding and strategy. In the realm of education in particular there are going to be lots of things happening in the next 10-20 years that will shake things up, including the growth of online education as a major complement to in-classroom instruction. During times of stagnant government revenues we’ll need to look for ever more productive ways to leverage school and public safety funding.

I think it will be better if the county can do that from a position of fiscal strength, so that essential county services are preserved; if such services go downhill it will be very difficulty to reverse adverse perceptions on the part of individuals or businesses considering relocating to Howard County. (For a good example of this problem see the recent Urbanite article about trying to demonstrate to people that many Baltimore public schools are in reality pretty good.)

Provide more opportunities to work, shop, and play locally. Although Baltimore and DC haven’t moved in terms of actual distance, as a practical matter traffic congestion is causing them to recede further and further over the horizon as time goes on. This effect is particularly pronounced in the case of DC and its suburbs. Because of the nature of my job I travel all over the DC metro area, and it’s astonishing how travel times have lengthened, especially for return trips in the afternoon and evening; from where I live in Ellicott City I’m now over an hour away from Bethesda and the close-in Maryland suburbs, over an hour and a half away from downtown DC, and (at least for the return trip) over two hours away from Reston, Herndon, and other northern Virginia locations.

In my opinion that makes it all the more important to foster employment growth and commercial development within Columbia and Howard County, so that there’s a critical mass of opportunities to live, work, and spend leisure time nearby. Some people are concerned that the planned Columbia Town Center development and other initiatives will increase traffic congestion by both increasing the local population and attracting commuters from elsewhere. That may be true, but I think the alternative is worse: I’d rather deal with some localized congestion commuting to a job within Howard County than have to drive a ways out of the county and then have to deal with equivalent or worse local congestion at my destination.

Ruthlessly reimagine traditional features of Columbia and the county at large. A good example here is the set of village centers in Columbia. Whatever role they might have played in the original vision of Columbia, to an outsider coming into Columbia today they are simply strip shopping centers that are inconveniently located. For better or worse increased mobility on the part of Columbia’s residents has altered the basic economic equation for the village centers: the more village residents shop outside the village, the more the centers need to attract custom from non-village residents in order to survive.

To me this sounds the death knell for the idea promoted by Alan Klein and others that certain services, such as a basic grocery store be considered required elements in a Columbia village center. A basic grocery is worse than useless in attracting outside business; far better in my opinion to provide a non-traditional grocery store that can attract significant outside business while still serving village residents. Other ways to differentiate village centers might include one-of-a-kind restaurants, boutiques, and other services, live/work spaces or coworking spaces.

I have no idea whether any of these might be sufficient to keep the village centers viable for the long term, especially the older and more inconveniently located ones. For at least some village centers it might be better to wipe the slate clean and start over rather than keep them on life support. And if preserving village centers as they were is truly important to preserving the vision of Columbia then CA or the county can consider subsidizing some of them or even buying them out to be used for public purposes. Maybe if all else fails they can even turn Wilde Lake Village Center into a living museum of Columbia, complete with Jim Rouse impersonator and interpretive guides.

Create attractive starter neighborhoods for families of modest means looking to move up into Howard County. There’s been a lot of discussion about having affordable housing as part of the new Columbia Town Center development, as opposed to having it be limited to the supposed wealthy few. I won’t quibble with the sentiment behind this, but the practicality of it is another matter. To the extent that Columbia in general, and Town Center in particular, become more attractive places to live, they will also be more expensive places to live, as market demand combined with relatively limited supply drives up prices. This convergence of people willing to spend serious money is exactly what makes it attractive to developers like GGP to make a bet on Columbia and Howard County; to quote Jim Rouse again, profit … was our primary objective, and nothing has changed in that regard.

Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t the Route 1 corridor a better place for truly affordable housing? I don’t mean this in a let’s put those folks out of sight across I-95 sort of way. I’m talking about fully integrating the Route 1 corridor as part of Howard County, including having as full a range of housing, shopping, and employment opportunities as elsewhere in the county, just more affordable. In sum, we want the neighborhoods along Route 1 to be the sort of places where families of modest means can aspire to live, places that partake in all the positive features that make Howard County a better suburb.

Upgrade the architecture a bit. One of the things that goes into a sense of place is the built environment of a community, both at the macro-scale (large architectural icons that brand a locale, like the Empire State Building in New York) and at the micro-scale (the street-level mix of office, retail, and residential buildings). Unfortunately Columbia had the misfortune to be built during the 60s and 70s, an era not known for architectural excellence. It’s pretty sad when your major claim to architectural distinction is a bit of Frank Gehry apprentice work. We can and should do better.

Unfortunately in practice Columbia and Howard County have very little chance of emulating Columbus, Indiana, and being home to world-class architecture in a suburban context. Howard County lacks the combination of truly wealthy philanthropists and status-seeking private-sector employers that has driven showcase architecture in Columbus and elsewhere, and given fiscal constraints governments cannot take up their mantle as architectural patrons (as they have done in Europe, for example). Things are even more bleak on the residential side, since both home buyers and home builders are notoriously conservative when it comes to architectural innovation.

Beyond continuing to press developers to be just a tad more adventurous, perhaps the best approach might simply be to limit the extent to which any one architectural vision and design scheme is carried out, whether in Columbia Town Center or elsewhere. This is the secret to many cities, for example: There’s enough variety that on any few blocks there’s a good chance of finding one or two architectural gems (relatively speaking), and whatever clunkers exist aren’t big enough to ruin the whole area.

Foster a few extras that are unique to Columbia and Howard County. In a comment to a previous post of mine Columbia 20something mentioned wanting to have some aspects of Howard County that were truly special and one of a kind:

There need to be unique traits that really make the town come alive. … concepts like uniformity and replicable have no place in creating a destination. … Columbia needs to shift away from being simply a better suburb to being a unique destination and a unique home.

Such a sense of uniqueness could be associated with particular places, particular events, or other features of county living.

Being one of a kind, these are the sort of things that can make a significant contribution to creating a true sense of place. However they’re also the hardest things to plan or predict in advance. As Columbia 20something noted, stereotypical planning can kill the very uniqueness it seeks to foster. (This is also the crux of the argument against Richard Florida-style creative class economic development strategies.)

In the end, unless it’s blessed with extraordinary geographic features the sense of uniqueness about a place arises mostly from how it’s evolved through its own unique and idiosyncratic history, and that is in large part of function of the unique and idiosyncratic people who lived there and made it what it was and is. So if we want one-of-a-kind attractions perhaps the only way to get there is to attract and be welcoming to one-of-a-kind people and then step back and see what happens.

That’s a good lead-in to the next article planned for this series, which will address how to translate into the 21st century the values of social tolerance, diversity, and inclusiveness that formed part of the founding vision of Columbia.