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October 10, 2011
Why Not Build A City?
Think Progress: Yglesias
by Matthew Yglesias
Washington, D.C. has the opportunity to do a reverse-Ratner: tear down a stadium and build a neighborhood.
The Washington Post has various people debate what to do with the obsolete RFK Stadium facility in DC:
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It’s striking to me how unpopular what I think the obvious and roughly correct solution is. The structure should be demolished and the empty land plus the open air parking lots should be sold to builders to build . . . whatever. An urban neighborhood with houses and some stores. You’re talking about a big parcel of land that’s right by a Metro station offering a convenient 10 minute commute to the House-side of the Capitol. If you build some houses, people will live there and if people live there they’ll want to shop in some stores and eat in some restaurants. Trying to lure a football team to the location to play eight times a year is insane, but in general “what to do with a bunch of transit accessible land in the middle of a city?” isn’t such a complicated question. Just build more city.
NoLandGrab: If the NBA labor impasse continues much longer, they could build a whole bunch of new neighborhoods.
Posted by eric at October 10, 2011 10:39 PM