When I have had the opportunity to travel abroad I’ve taken opportunities to see the famous sights and enjoy the destinations that often headline sections from Frommer’s travel guides. What is the point of seeing Paris without at least the cursory visit to the Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triomphe, or Louvre. What you do after that often depicts what fascinates you with these cities of historic relevance. I tend to walk around and attempt to understand how the residents live, what elements could be improved with their cities, and which could be incorporated to improve Fairfax, Virginia.
This may come as a shock to some, but there are things we can learn from other societies in order to improve our own. Some might call that Agenda 21 propaganda, I call it realistic. America as a whole does run very well in so much that we do. I wouldn’t trade our economy for any other in the world. I wouldn’t give up our legacy of pursuing a more perfect union for any other country’s national identity. However, when it comes to the ease of our lives we are very much trapped in a cycle of what is handed to us. While we are the land of great freedoms, we are cornered by standardization and repeatable concepts.
Case in point, what we do with empty spaces in our towns and cities that can often become insulators of criminal activity, arbitrarily lowered land values, and pollution. No example is greater than the massive prairies of parking lots found in Tysons. There is more gross square footage allocated to parking in Tysons Corner, 40 million square feet, than the total size of most towns in Europe.
Surface parking is what happens when land use has no alternative improvements possible. When a project is trapped by what it can do with the space it often meets the minimum open green space requirements and covers the rest in asphalt. I am not proposing that all parking be reclaimed right now for green spaces, or even for redevelopment in every case immediately (though I do believe these are the first places to look for redevelopment instead of allowing urban creep to advance into residential neighborhoods). The point is, these asphalt fields will be the reality of Tysons for the foreseeable future until the economic mechanisms that dictate a good redevelopment opportunity start to catch up with the shear size of this wasted space.
What does this have to do with travelling to Paris?
Many might not realize this, but there are plenty of open non-developed and paved areas in some of the greatest cities across the world. In our visit to Taipei, Taiwan we were able to see a before and after of vacant land during the day used for cargo and business transformed into a vibrant retail hot spot at night. We argued that this would be a great way to use an asset in Tysons to both encourage innovative private solutions to the 9 to 5 vibe as well as to generate a new source of revenue for future public improvements. Most importantly Tysons can attain a unique and (I hate to use the word) cool rebranding to it’s buttoned down, mall visitor image.
In France I observed a similar open mind to solving a wasted space dilemma. At night parts of historic downtown Paris (the museum district) previously would be full of tourists wandering and eventually heading to other parts of the city. The core becomes a ghost town in many areas. The solution has become night time pop-up markets, in this case Christmas markets, which offer food, drink, and shopping to those who still want to enjoy the backdrop of great sights. The concept itself has remained free to adapt as well. Civic squares, at night a gathering place for revelers and patios for restaurants, could be empty unused spaces during the day. City officials don’t want these areas developed because of their important public role for community building so instead during the day they allow daily removable markets to sell produce, clothing, and other goods. This also has the benefit of cultivating smaller retail and unique sellers who can not afford the very expensive rates in traditional leased properties.
Dear Washington DC, I’m not sure if you have actually attempted to view Constitution Avenue as a tourist, but you may want to take notes on what Paris does. Unless you are a really huge fan of cheap pretzels and spoiled hot dogs, there is nothing other than the monuments to keep you in this part of town, and at night that usually isn’t enough.
The strange thing is DC has seen great success in its own right with temporary revitalization spaces. For example, the fairgrounds at Nationals Stadium. What was a massive vacant gash directly adjacent to the beautiful stadium is now one of the most popular elements of any visit for many Nats fans. More importantly the space is now activated to be an economic asset and tourist destination.
In 40 years the parking lots and vacant space near the Silver Line tracks may be completely redeveloped into a vibrant core but why spite the present while we wait for that future? Fairfax County would have to do nothing except to formally allow temporary retail practices in these unused commercial zoned properties. It wouldn’t require a single additional infrastructure investment because the markets would inherently be during low demand hours of the day. Charge a $0.10 per square foot of market venue fee and you could make millions of dollars in revenue weekly if even 3-5% of the parking areas were revitalized.
Yes, for a dime per square foot, a cost that would easily be outweighed by the revenue that private land owners could make back for temporary retail reservation, Fairfax could find a $50 million annual tax source without forcing it upon parties who attain no benefit. For comparison the total revenue from residential land owners based on the current tax rate increase proposal for Tysons is $6.25 million per year.
Is this estimate aggressive? Out of the 40 million square feet of parking area only 1.6 million square feet, or 36 acres, would need to be revitalized as temporary markets. That would mean approximately one 2-acre (300 parking spaces) market for each 1/4 mile radius in Tysons, not exactly unattainable. Even if only one or two markets opened up it would still be new revenue which could replace other less popular sources.
Around the world cities are continuing the trend of fully utilizing all assets they possess for temporary solutions. Pop up stores, night markets, fair grounds, and entertainment plazas are popular in Berlin, Taipei, Rio de Janeiro, and Paris. So why are most U.S. cities so afraid to do more with less? Tysons could be an example of transforming pavement to activated land use. After all what most people think of when they think of Tysons today is the image of endless open parking.