DR. YES'

URBAN LEGEND

Floreen, Knapp, and Greedy Developers Agree:

Montgomery County is Urban, not Suburban(???)

Dr. Yes has made a breakthrough! Now that the future plans of Dr. Yes (a.k.a. Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson) are becoming known (such as a plan to build Bethesda Row from the Naval Hospital to Clarksburg along 355), he's making no bones about it. He wants to declare Montgomery County to be one large city, and replace a suburban development concept with an urban one.

Is Montgomery County an urban city? Not quite. Downtown Bethesda (and only the downtown) is urban, and should be developed that way. Downtown Silver Spring... it is now an urban area. Friendship Heights? Too small to be a city, but definitely urban in character. Rockville? Not unless Disneyland counts as "urban." (I'm referring to the only "urban" part of Rockville, the new "Town Center," so aptly described recently by a citizen as a "food court with gift shops.") Rockville Pike is not urban. It is a suburban commercial strip such as you would find anywhere from Westminster to 301 in Southern Maryland to Towson. And there is nothing wrong with that at all. "It is what it is," as the business majors say.

The rest of the county - a majority - is suburban, exurban, or rural in nature. But there won't be much nature left if Dr. Yes has his way.

He wants to increase density, pave over green space, and turn old shopping centers such as those on Westbard into gargantuan, mixed use debacles. As usual, the mass transit fantasy will be used (don't forget Dr. Yes approved minimal surface parking for Clarksburg Town Center, which is about as far from Metro as the moon!!) to justify a simple cash scheme: Planning Board and County Council rubber stamps for developer greed. Somebody get the Illinois governor on the phone...

The Gazette states that councilmember Nancy Floreen (D - At Large) "agrees with much of what Hanson is advocating." "I think the vast majority of residents bought into a suburban lifestyle," she said. News update: this is the suburbs!

Dr. Yes plans on a risky financial scheme that could further threaten the county's financial stability - even as our Democrat leaders have run the budget into the ground already.

But who will really pay the bills for Dr. Yes' freakish concept? YOU! Check the fine print: "special taxing districts" will be created, so that citizens can pay even more taxes.

Mike Knapp says greater density equals less traffic. There's a bridge for sale in Brooklyn, ladies and gentlemen.

"Royce sees the future as now," says Knapp.

What a scary future it is. Sort of like Back to the Future II, with the homeless guys warming their hands over barrels. Concrete canyons, high crime, and toxic waste. Cramped apartments over Metro stops (do you know how much exhaust and carcinogens are in the air around those bus stations, anyway), low wages, and lots of welfare and big government programs.

Residents must stand up and say "NO" to Dr. Yes.