Delivering on the Promise of the Purple Line
The Washington Post
By Gerrit Knaap, Published: May 2
When funding for the Purple Line appeared in President Obama’s budget in March, the light-rail project connecting Montgomery and Prince George’s counties began to take on an air of inevitability. To be sure, critical steps and uncertainty remain, but Maryland transit officials are planning to break ground on the 16-mile line next year. “When,” not “if,” has become the appropriate question.
The Purple Line can deliver many social and economic benefits. But the checkered history of light-rail projects around the nation tells us that these will not fully materialize unless we actively plan for them. Concerns about employment, housing, construction disruptions and the like will fall through the cracks. The promise of this project could disintegrate into myriad problems.
Read the rest of the Op Ed article at The Washington Post.
The American mobilization for World War II is famed for its industrial production; less well known is that it was also one of the greatest urban planning challenges that the United States has ever faced. Although Americans tend to think of World War II as a time of national unity, mobilization had a fractious side. Interest groups competed for federal attention, frequent — sometimes violent — protests interrupted mobilization plans, and seemingly local urban planning controversies could blow up into investigations by the U.S. Senate.
built in a rural area 25 miles west of Detroit, bringing the plant to success required dealing with housing, transportation, and communities for its tens of thousands of workers. It involved Americans from all walks of life: federal officials, industrialists, labor leaders, social activists, small business owners, civic leaders, and—just as significantly—the industrial workers and their families.