Cityscape: Of Shopping And Smart Growth

Benjamin Forgey reviews the architecture and urban design of two mixed-use development projects in Virginia.

1 minute read

December 19, 2001, 4:00 AM PST

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


"I went to Pentagon Row and to the Market Common, Clarendon. Both are...mixed-use retail complexes in older, close-in Virginia suburbs...As glorious as they may be, [big box shopping outlets are] acreage-eating consumer cornucopias -- located ever farther on the metropolitan fringes and hugely overdependent on the automobile -- have contributed mightily to the environmental mess we've come to know as urban sprawl. They've also siphoned economic life from existing town and city centers...The two Virginia developments, by contrast, might be characterized as smart money doing smart growth."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan

Tuesday, December 18, 2001 in The Washington Post

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