HOW "SMART"
GROWTH WILL
BOOST CRIME
IN
MONTGOMERY
COUNTY
One of the reasons older shopping centers, malls, and strip malls were designed the way they were, was for the safety of patrons. These facilities have surface parking lots, and parking is usually located between the street and the stores. As a result, crime against customers is reduced by the fact that any criminal activity is visible from both passing cars (including police cars), and from the employees, customers, and surveillance cameras of the businesses.
The new "smart" growth concept is that of concrete canyons towering above roads like 355, with paid customer parking in garages behind the buildings. Just think about what used to be on 355 at Rockville's town center... and now consider that a woman shopping there today must enter a dungeon-like garage. A garage that is often quite deserted, especially after the government buildings and courthouse have closed for the day. Is that safe? I daresay, no! And given the kind of criminals we have today, it's not safe for an unarmed man, either.
So while we'll continue to talk about the more obvious reasons why turning suburban and rural Montgomery County into an urban city is a horrifically terrible idea, let's not forget that the architects and developments of the past got a lot of things right.
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