I grew up in Frederick County, when it *was* boondocks. At least it was far enough from the city that the Montgomery County kids called us "frednecks."
There's much worse developments around here than Brunswick's. Villages of Urbana is particularly frustrating for me, with so much within walking/biking *distance*, but the built environmen…
I grew up in Frederick County, when it *was* boondocks. At least it was far enough from the city that the Montgomery County kids called us "frednecks."
There's much worse developments around here than Brunswick's. Villages of Urbana is particularly frustrating for me, with so much within walking/biking *distance*, but the built environment being mostly hostile to moving between places without a car.
At least in Brunswick you *can* walk between, say, the Marc station and the Weis (or anything in town between them) without walking alongside, or crossing, Burkittsville Road. In Urbana the places you might want to get to are in seven or eight pieces divided by traffic.
"Frednecks." Yeah Urbana is along 355 right? I've driven by there, it's so weird to see basically urban buildings just kind of randomly placed down there. You're right though, the walkability is rough and it's worse maybe because there *is* more stuff to get to. Brunswick doesn't have much retail or general stuff as far as I saw unless you go to Frederick or MoCo. Like a bunch of other commenters, I wish these new developments right near old towns enlarged the grid and connected to the old town. I don't think Urbana has any such old town.
Urbana was little more than a crossroads before the developer came in '99. There was an elementary school, volunteer fire company, gas station, convenience store, and pizza/sub shop. So, yeah, not much of a town to build off, but the project was big enough that they could have built one from scratch. The new library, Giant grocery store, and the other "Market District" buildings you drove past *could* have been arranged as a walkable center. As it is, the Giant parking lot is the closest thing to a town square; the stores that face directly on that lot get a little mutual foot traffic (even though almost everybody had to get there by car to start). Nobody is ever walking the sidewalk on the other side of 355, because it's an undesirable walk alongside fast traffic to get there from anywhere else.
I grew up in Frederick County, when it *was* boondocks. At least it was far enough from the city that the Montgomery County kids called us "frednecks."
There's much worse developments around here than Brunswick's. Villages of Urbana is particularly frustrating for me, with so much within walking/biking *distance*, but the built environment being mostly hostile to moving between places without a car.
At least in Brunswick you *can* walk between, say, the Marc station and the Weis (or anything in town between them) without walking alongside, or crossing, Burkittsville Road. In Urbana the places you might want to get to are in seven or eight pieces divided by traffic.
"Frednecks." Yeah Urbana is along 355 right? I've driven by there, it's so weird to see basically urban buildings just kind of randomly placed down there. You're right though, the walkability is rough and it's worse maybe because there *is* more stuff to get to. Brunswick doesn't have much retail or general stuff as far as I saw unless you go to Frederick or MoCo. Like a bunch of other commenters, I wish these new developments right near old towns enlarged the grid and connected to the old town. I don't think Urbana has any such old town.
Urbana was little more than a crossroads before the developer came in '99. There was an elementary school, volunteer fire company, gas station, convenience store, and pizza/sub shop. So, yeah, not much of a town to build off, but the project was big enough that they could have built one from scratch. The new library, Giant grocery store, and the other "Market District" buildings you drove past *could* have been arranged as a walkable center. As it is, the Giant parking lot is the closest thing to a town square; the stores that face directly on that lot get a little mutual foot traffic (even though almost everybody had to get there by car to start). Nobody is ever walking the sidewalk on the other side of 355, because it's an undesirable walk alongside fast traffic to get there from anywhere else.