Seems like an admission that they have nothing new to do so they are seeking growth through federal contracts.
Northern VA is the poster child of what happens when you have tons of growth over decades, but absolutely no planning, or worse, lots of nimby preventing infrastructure.
Arlington, VA probably did the best job of any post-WWII high growth city in America. The orange line corridor is actually urbanizing what was once pure suburbia. Crystal City/Pentagon city is built pretty densely and has space for even more high rise buildings.
Every other city in America that grew post wwII would have just built strip malls and single-family homes.
There are new high rises going up in Crystal city even as rents stagnated. Can't be too much nimby stuff going on.
Compared to say, silicon valley, they did a good job.
Loudon County did a bad job. Fairfax did a mixed job. They definitely grew in some places--like Tysons, but other parts have just grown without planning.
I have a lot of trouble believing that Tysons was planned at all. The area is nearly unwalkable and is effectively dominated by multi-lane roads. Yes, there's there Silver line, and I won't dispute that the station for Tyson's corner managed to make some considerations for walkers, but as for the rest of the area, I shouldn't have to cross a highway to walk to work!
This is true. There are so many high rises being built along the Wilson-Clarendon corridor, and Arlington and Alexandria actually have a big presence of the so-called missing middle of housing development [1]. This location seems like it's pretty well equipped to absorb HQ2
<Basically any popular urban center in the US in the past 50 years> is the poster child of what happens when you have tons of growth over decades, but absolutely no planning, or worse, lots of nimby preventing infrastructure.
I'm of the opinion that every urban planner from the last fifty years in the US should be stripped of their degrees and titles their lands taken and their crops burned.
The US transportation infrastructure even for how good it is compared to some other places is still a joke.
Reston and Ashburn are two fully planned communities. A lot of thought went into Reston particularly. Almost every home is near a walking trail, a pool, and a small shopping center.
Northern VA is the poster child of what happens when you have tons of growth over decades, but absolutely no planning, or worse, lots of nimby preventing infrastructure.