How?

 

Today’s blog is a question. 

I was over on Waterloo Road yesterday picking up something from my Buy Nothing group. I’m talking about the portion of Waterloo between Snowden River Parkway and the turnoff to Old Annapolis Road/Route 108. That particular stretch is quite the hodge podge of different kinds of uses. 

How did that evolve? It feels to me to be unlike anything else I’ve seen in Howard County. It’s almost as though outparcels ate some kind of magical food and took over the universe. In just a quick turnoff from the main road you feel as though you’re in a whole other town. But only for one cul de sac. By contrast there’s Shipley’s Grant with its well-organized residential sections and accompanying commercial center. Near, tidy, cohesive in design and layout.

I want to be clear. This is not a rant. This is not innately a kind of criticism of how it all turned out. It’s curiosity, pure and simple. How did this stretch of road get to be so idiosyncratic? Surely there’s a story here. Is it zoned for anything that anyone feels like putting there? 

It can’t be as simple as that.

I know there are readers of this blog who are quite knowledgeable on this sort of thing. Fill me in. As someone said to me the other day, “explain it to me like I’m three.” I honestly want to know. Perhaps because I spend so much of my life in the Columbubble I find the riotous variety on Waterloo Road much “louder” than most people would.

What do you think?