Fairfax Boulevard, in the City of Fairfax, is almost wall-to-wall strip malls. Many of them aren’t doing well, though; there are numerous vacant or closed stores. What to do? In Fairfax, the answer is: build another strip mall!

According to the Fairfax Times, after turning down proposals over the past 14 years to build condos, an amusement park, or keep it as open space.

Councilman Scott Silverthorne expressed his regard of the developer, John Donegan. Donegan’s developments are not “just strip malls. They’re works of art,” Silverthorne said.

Behold some of Donegan’s “art”:

Yes, these strip malls are a little more upscale than the average strip mall, especially many of Fairfax’s old ones. But a strip mall is still a strip mall. If the only thing town leaders can think of to make Fairfax nicer is to build newer strip malls, that’s just sad.

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Tagged: bad streets, development, fairfax city, sprawl, virginia

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.