The following was submitted as a comment to the Baltimore SUN under "second opinion":
Baltimore County was once very progressive in managing development by creating the URDL (Urban Rural Demarcation Line) protecting large swaths of the north county from sprawl. Unfortunately, this was not accompanied with controlled quality development inside the URDL. While Howard and Montgomery County can point to new--urbanist mixed use high quality developments showing convincing urban form (Kentlands, Maple Farm), Baltimore County has only standard developments of the curvy wide road and cul-de-sac variety to offer, decidedly non urban with fully segregated uses and at best mediocre architecture. (witness developments left and right of Rolling Road north of Dogwood Road). Even the two designated town centers Owings Mills and White Marsh/Honeygo offer little or nothing when it comes to mixed use and urbanity, no comparison to Reston or Columbia. Although the county recognized that the older communities need a shot in the arm ("Renaissance" initiatives), especially in the southwest, there is little new investment to be seen and several communities suffer from declining retail quality, declining school performances. and aging infrastructure. Abandoned or under-performing commercial real estate to the galore but too few initiatives and too little leadership for redevelopment even before the economic crash. Regarding transportation, the county still likes to widen roads for cars with little regard for transit or the concept of "complete streets". Thus pedestrians and bicycles remain neglected stepchildren (see widening of Rolling Road north of Windsor Mill rd) and walking to schools is dangerous and largely a dream. This overall sad condition is no way to capture well educated and economically dynamic younger residents and families which we need to combat the capsized County age pyramid. As a community leader in the southwest I would hope that the new executive would seize the opportunity that the planned Red Line represents and proactively plan for mixed use dense redevelopment of the vast under-performing Security Mall area with concepts like the ones planned for the Columbia town center. This approach could be continued along the commercial strip wastelands of the arterial corridors of US 40, Liberty Road and parts of Reisterstown Road in a similar manner as in Arlington County around their metro stations (example Clarendon). The redevelopment of the commercial fallow areas would allow the protection of the remaining green spaces and open lots in the existing neighborhoods and prevent the cheap and sloppy infill houses crammed into spaces that were previously considered undevelopable. In all, the Executive will have his hands full to restore the older areas of the County as attractive places with a quality of life that can compete with the surrounding areas and and a continually revitalizing core City.
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