The listening session in Woodlawn was interesting on several levels if sparsely attended. Unfortunately it is unclear what benefit the task force will get out of this. Task force members were conspicuous in their absence, which is perhaps a function of asking too much of them given that there have been (or will be ) at least six of these events around the State. In addition to a sad sense that we have seen all of this before, I was struck by three things:

First, the listening part of the event seems to be very unstructured. There was the routine visual preferance exercise involving profound choices like asking the audience whether they liked a vacant shopping center (it looked like an abandoned K Mart) or a small downtown street with trees. The answers are both obvious and predictable. Nothing new there. Second there was an opportunity for the audience to speak which was not in any way structured to address any particular issue. Predictably, again, we got avery local concern (opposition to a specific redevelopment proposal) and the usual global view of desiring to stop population growth in Maryland, which since that growth is driven almost entirely by inmigration seems a very zenophobic (if not racist) view.

Second and more important is the fact that the State seems to be focused on issues that were relevant in 1970 or maybe even 1997. The planning secretary showed the usual measles map with an ever growing sprawl pattern covering more of central Maryland. It is almost as if the State is oblivious to the 100% increase in gas prices and to a downturn in the housing market that combined makes a return to the building practices of the last 30 years extremely unlikely. One wonders whhy we should use graphics to show a problem that is going to go away on its own, but completely ignore the problems that we should be facing. Those are addressing an aging infrastructure in older communities, focusing on livability (and gentrification) issues in a market that is going to drive higher densities in those communities, and the need for an entirely different approach to transportation in the metropolitan areas.

Lastly I was struck by the lack of vision from the presentations. Rather than showing a pattern of growth that the planners (and I assume the Administration) don't support, why not show the pattern of growth and development that the is visionary and can be the used as a goal that the State and local governments can work toward? Perhaps that is what the State development plan will be. If so it might have some usefulness as opposed to a document designed to support a quixotic attempt to second guess local land use decisions.