This is a preview of a longer piece, most likely. I have a few things I’m chewing on that will probably come together for that longer piece, and here they are:

1. Many of the loveliest, most classically urban small towns I’ve visited and written about are very exclusive, small, slow-growing communities.

2. How do you distinguish between a place that is expensive because it is truly worthy of being expensive, in some way, and a place that is expensive because of screwed up housing supply and markets?

3. Is “truly worthy of being expensive” a bogus idea in and of itself?

4. Is “exclusive” the same as “exclusionary”? Why or why not?

Actually, that’s probably more than one longer piece.

These are thoughts I have often, in some form or another, as I explore places and think about their design/history/etc., and what they say for urbanists today. For example, take Middleburg. It’s an extremely affluent town in Virginia’s “horse and hunt country,” past the exurban edge of D.C. in Loudoun County. There’s very strong NIMBY sentiment there against the encroaching D.C. sprawl, which has eaten up the countryside almost all the way to Middleburg.

Is that good or bad? Is it important to preserve the countryside? “Upzone the rich”? Grow in a smart manner, i.e. putting more density where we’ve already built as opposed to sprawling out at low densities for mile after mile? Is suburban sprawl with an urban form—mixed-use centers, for example—good? Or is location more important than form?

Do these little islands of stately classic urbanism mean much of anything for those of us who care about improving this country’s built environment, in the places where most of us actually live?

I write a lot about developing or reimagining the suburbs more along small-town lines. And I wonder a lot why suburbanites seem to resist that, even though most of them like small towns. Maybe they just think it’s not a feasible transformation. And maybe they’re right?

I mean, I don’t think they’re right. But I grew up in the suburbs, and I understand the anti-urban mindset to some extent, so as much as I’ve become committed to urbanism I try to be charitable to those who see it differently. And these are questions that arise out of my being a suburbanite and also an urbanist.

Lots to think about here. Leave a comment!

A little Substack note—Substack just released a new feature bestowing “verification” badges on writers who have achieved various numbers of paid subscribers. You may notice that I have the variant of the badge that signifies “hundreds of paid subscribers.” That’s right—I had no idea if I’d even get 10 or 20 when I started, but you’ve gotten me there! The next level up is “thousands of paid subscribers.” One day?

Related Reading:

The Chester Houses

Mental Separation of Uses

Meat and Money in Northern Virginia

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