Whatever Happened To…?

Oakland Mills Village Center

This is just to say that

I visited

The Village Center

yesterday

without a jacket

and maybe

Spring really is

coming

for real.

The flowers are blooming

and the dancers

look hopeful.

Come, pick a book

From the Little Free Library.

They are plentiful - - juicy and delicious - -

for your soul.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Columbia concept of Village life recently as April elections approach.

Courtesy of Columbia MD Archives. Unknown publication.

Columbia is a city of villages.

It was always intended to be a city. Look at the icon and the accompanying slogan on the lower right. But at the same time it intended to ground itself in the smaller communities of village life.

If you read the promotional text you will see what parts of the vision came true and which did not. It’s clearly more aspirational than outright factual in nature. For example, what’s this about a branch library and junior and senior high school near each village green? Wilde Lake comes to mind, and they did have a branch library early on. Did any other village come close?

Does every village even have a village green?

Do most residents see villages merely as locations for aging, outmoded shopping centers?

Is the concept of Columbia as a city which is rooted and nourished by a kind of small-town village life still alive today?

When we ask people to run for CA Board or, at the very least, participate in annual elections, what does that mean to them?

It’s too early to be sure, but it seems to me that this year’s elections are shaping up to be a contest between those who support the Board faction whose behavior led to the resignation of the CA President, and those who vehemently do not. There’s definitely a sense of us vs. them, choosing sides, picking teams. I guess that's only natural given recent events.

But where do villages fit in all this? Are we losing those identities that Rouse saw as vital to the New American City? Or were Columbia’s villages merely ‘themed housing developments with shopping centers’ wrapped in slick, utopian-sounding packaging?

When CA board members are elected and sworn in, who are they representing? What way of life are they working to sustain?

Columbia is a city of villages.

What does that mean to you?

Village Green/Town² Comments

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