The residents trying to keep the park and community garden on Virginia Avenue on Capitol Hill from becoming another Marine facility have created a video (via Housing Complex):

During the last time this came up, some commenters expressed disbelief that a blog supportive of Smart Growth would ever support keeping a park instead of adding buildings. nookie wrote:

This blog and its supporters are all about smart growth, high density usage, fitting more into less, efficiencies of scale and yet here we have a downtown, Metro-accessible URBAN location that could accommodate hundreds more people with disposable incomes to patronize the Capitol Hill businesses and all of a sudden urbanism is dead?

I replied to nookie then, but Lydia DePillis articulates the argument

Densely populated places are immeasurably more valuable when paired with access to permeable ground, not just for sunbathing and playing frisbee, but maintaining some kind of connection to the production of food. … Wealthy landowners in New York have the money to keep Gramercy Park from becoming another high-rise, and it’s a delightful amenity to have in the middle of Manhattan—but it’s kept under lock and key. Shouldn’t there be some effort to set aside these kinds of oases for the public as density develops around them? Is a closed naval base more deserving of space near a Metro stop than a garden open to all?

Quite simply, parks are an important part of creating real livable urban spaces. Increasing opportunities for more people to live in DC is very important, but it’s also vital to maintain the amenities necessary for pleasant urban life, including parks.

All “green space” is not equally good. Empty space people can’t use, like the McMillan site or tree-covered berms surrounding the parking lots in Brookland and Takoma, isn’t the same as real parks, and most arguments for keeping those vacant are just building allergies in disguise. But this park is clearly getting a lot of use and serving an important need for the community beyond just some people liking having no buildings there.

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Tagged: anti neighbors, capitol hill, dc, development, marine barracks, parks, public spaces, video

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.