SACRPH 2019 Tours, Plenaries, and Events
Thursday Tour, October 31, 2:00 – 5:00 pm
Arlington in Transformation
AICP Continuing Education Credit – 2.5 CM
This tour examines the innovative planning initiatives undertaken in Arlington County along the Metrorail corridor from Rosslyn to Ballston as well as the communities that coexist with the high density, urban clusters. These communities reflect an earlier model of design around residential and retail development in Arlington’s signature garden apartment complexes of the inter-world war and World War II era and, as the automobile became more prevalent, neighborhoods of low-density, low-scale single family houses that give the county its suburban character.
Participants will investigate the reorientation of 1960s Crystal City and 1970s Rosslyn to the street and witness the effects of Smart Growth planning along Wilson Boulevard over the past 40 years. Case studies in city and regional planning – past and present – will be presented at the Wilson School and Queens Court in West Rosslyn, in Ballston Quarter, along Columbia Pike, and in Shirlington to illustrate Arlington’s transformation over the last century.
Join us for on-site discussions with local planners, developers, affordable housing advocates, and community leaders influencing Arlington in Transformation through Smart Growth planning and place-making. We will examine the successes, and failures, of planning in Arlington and the risks inherent in pricing out diversity and serving a transient population of foreign nationals, government workers, and military personnel.
The tour will conclude in Shirlington for our opening plenary and reception for all conference participants and accompanying persons.
Tour Facilitators:
Robert J. Duffy, FAICP, Planning Director, Arlington County Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development (CPHD)
J. Kris Krider, AICP, LEED Green Associate, Planning Supervisor, Arlington County, CPHD
Tina Leone, Chief Executive Officer, Ballston Business Improvement District
Laura London, Associate Director of Real Estate Development, Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing
Margaret Rhodes, Planner, Arlington County, CPHD
Carmen Romero, Vice President of Real Estate Development, Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing
Russell Danao-Schroeder, Principal Planner, Arlington County, CPHD
Richard Tucker, Senior/Principal Planner, Arlington County, CPHD
Thursday Opening Plenary and Reception, October 31, 5:30 – 8:00 pm, at Busboys and Poets Cafe, Shirlington (4251 Campbell Ave, Arlington, VA 22206
Immigrant Arlington
Our hour-long opening plenary focuses on the history and present challenges facing Arlington County’s diverse, immigrant-rich communities. The county has substantial populations from Asia (especially Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines), Central America (El Salvador, Mexico, Peru), and Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia), as well as a long-standing African American community. Our panelists will reflect on the role of immigrants and long-time minority residents in shaping the space and shape of communities such as Chirilagua, Nauck, and Columbia Pike.
A reception of beverages and appetizers will follow the opening plenary and last from 6:45 until 8:00 pm.
A shuttle bus will transport conference attendees from the DoubleTree to the Busboys and Poets Cafe in Shirlington beginning at 5:00 pm. Buses will return following the reception, beginning at 7:15pm.
Panelists:
Krystyn Moon, Associate Professor and Program Director of American Studies, University of Mary Washington
Evelin Urrutia, Executive Director, Tenants and Workers United, Alexandria
Dr. Alfred O. Taylor, Jr., author of Bridge Builders of Nauck/Green Valley: Past and Present (2015)
Kim Oanh Cook, Founder and Executive Director, Vietnamese Resettlement Association
Adriana Gómez Schellhaas
Executive Director, Casa Chirilagua
Plenary – Friday, November 1, 8:30 – 10:00 am
A Planning Revival: A Praxis of Public Engagement
In order to bridge the professional and academic sphere, this plenary presents a proposal to the SACRPH membership: develop a theory and practice working group within SACRPH to deepen its public engagement. As a potential example of such engagement, Julian Chambliss has invited James Benderson, the Town Planner of Eatonville, to explain the need for a better understanding of the discriminatory legacies of planning and property in African American heritage communities and to invite SACRPH to participate in conversations with elected officials sponsored by Eatonville at the annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities. The panelists will also engage in a roundtable discussion around an agenda of public engagement and public scholarship for SACRPH.
Panelists:
Julian Chambliss, Professor of English, Michigan State University
James Benderson, Town Planner, Eatonville, Florida
Andrea R. Roberts, Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A &M University, College of Architecture
Fallon Samuels Aidoo, Jean Brainard Boebel Endowed Professor of Historic Preservation, Department of Planning & Urban Studies, University of New Orleans
Friday Mobile Workshop, November 1, 10:15 am – Noon
Preserving Alexandria: Historic Renewal and Redeveloped History
AICP Continuing Education Credit – 1.75 CM
During Panel Session 1, this bus and walking workshop will travel from the DoubleTree Hotel by bus to Old Town Alexandria, where we will examine City Hall/Market Square and the evolution of the working waterfront. The workshop will interrogate the two as case studies in restoration, reuse, and urban renewal in the nation’s third oldest historic district. On-site analysis raises questions of what is – and was – considered historic and of how city planning approaches are measured over time. The walk begins at City Hall and continues along King Street to the Torpedo Factory and Waterfront Park, before returning to the DoubleTree. Join us on a journey into planning history within a context of historic preservation and a discussion of national trends and local experience in George Washington’s hometown.
Workshop Facilitators:
Catherine K. Miliaras, AICP, Principal Planner, Historic Preservation, City of Alexandria Department of Planning and Zoning
John H. Sprinkle, Jr., PhD, Bureau Historian, National Park Service
Friday Mobile Workshop, November 1, 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Crystal City to National Landing
AICP Continuing Education Credit – 1.75 CM
During Panel Session 2, this walking workshop in mid-century planning examines the development of Crystal City in the 1960s and its revitalization in the 2000s. The architectural landscape of Crystal City with its superblocks, speckled concrete, and underground shopping is distinctive to the region and, in some ways, anticipated the contained living and office spaces constructed in the decades that followed. Participants will meet with representatives of Arlington County, the Crystal City Business Improvement District, and JBG Smith at 18th Street to discuss the place-making initiatives of the postwar period, and today, in the context of Amazon HQ2 and rebranding of Crystal City as National Landing.
The walking tour component follows this welcome at the 18th Street marketing center, and includes the Underground and Crystal Drive, Metropolitan Park, and Pen Place, each a signature element in Crystal City’s planning history and distinctive spatial experience.
Note: Participants will meet in the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel for the workshop. A shuttle bus will take the group to 18th Street by way of key points of interest in Crystal City’s evolution from the 1960s to the present: Crystal Houses, WeWork, and 23rd Street.
Workshop Facilitators:
J. Kris Krider, AICP, LEED Green Associate, Planning Supervisor, Arlington County Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development
Robert Mantle, Chief Operating Officer, Crystal City Business Improvement District
Lunch Plenary – Friday, November 1, 12:15 – 2:00 pm
Edge City Revisited
In 1991, journalist Joel Garreau published Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, a look at large-scale developments in suburban areas across the U.S., what he calls “information age, 21st-century nodes where the majority of Americans now live, work, play, pray, socialize, shop, grow up and grow old.” Garreau labeled Tysons Corner, a Fairfax County suburb (and the subject of a SACRPH tour on Sunday) the “quintessential” edge city. Join us for a presentation and conversation with Garreau as he reflects on his 1991 book and looks to the future of cities
Speaker:
Joel Garreau, The Garreau Group
Friday Tour, November 1, 2:15 – 4:00 pm
The Pentagon – SOLD OUT
During Panel Session 2, a tour of the Pentagon will be offered. Participants will travel by shuttle to the Pentagon for a guided, official tour lasting one hour. Before arriving on site, participants will be briefed by Alan P. Capps, PhD, George Mason University, on the building history in the context of civil-military relations, bureaucratic politics, and regional planning design.
Conference Reception and Program, Friday, November 1, 6:30 – 9:00 pm, Historic Terminal A, National Airport
Join us in Historic Terminal A, the former main terminal of National Airport and now an event space, for a SACRPH Reception and Program featuring Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Assistant Professor & Charles H. Mcilwain University Preceptor, Department of African American Studies, Princeton University and Rhonda Y. Williams, John L. Seigenthaler Chair in American History, Vanderbilt University. The two will discuss Professor Taylor’s forthcoming book, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (University of North Carolina Press, October 2019).
A reception will proceed the program, with coffee and dessert to follow.
Shuttle buses will be available from the DoubleTree Hotel, beginning at 6:15 pm, and running regularly until 9:00 pm. (The Airport is also accessible by Metro).
Lunch Plenary – Saturday, November 2, 12:15 – 2:00 pm
Big Tech in the City: Amazon in Arlington and the future of regional economic development
After a nation-wide competition, Amazon announced in November 2018 that it planned to build its HQ2 in New York and Arlington’s Crystal City neighborhood. Amazon subsequently dropped its plans for New York, but is pressing ahead to rebrand Crystal City as “National Landing.” What does this competition and its aftermath tell us about the power of a global corporation to influence local land use and planning, and of the ways in which large technology companies are shaping 21st century metropolitan geography? Margaret O’Mara, author of the new book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (Penguin Press, July 2019), and Amy Liu, a leading expert and strategic thinker in city and regional economic growth and planning, will discuss how and why Amazon ended up in Arlington, the local and regional dynamics shaping its arrival, and the implications for planners and scholars of the American city.
Panelists:
Margaret O’Mara, Howard & Frances Keller Professor of History, University of Washington
Amy Liu, Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program and the Adeline M. and Alfred I. Johnson Chair in Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Brookings Institution
Moderated by Robin Bachin, Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor of History and Assistant Provost for Civic and Community Engagement, University of Miami
Awards Ceremony and Reception, Saturday, November 2, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Join us in the DoubleTree’s Monument View Room for a Reception, the presentation of SACRPH Awards, and the announcement of SACRPH 2021.
Sunday Tour A, November 3, 8:30 am – Noon
Edge City and Planned Suburbia: Tysons Corner and Reston
AICP Continuing Education Credit – 3 CM
Just beyond Arlington County lie quintessential examples of post-war commercial and residential development. The Edge City known as Tysons continues its evolution from a 1950s Virginia crossroads to a 21st-century behemoth, with two major shopping malls, numerous corporate headquarters, convention hotels, and – most recently – Metro access. The latter signaled an effort to “urbanize” Tysons through higher density development and new place-making. Roughly 15 minutes down the road, the planned-community of Reston offers a look at mid-1960s planning. Developed by Robert E. Simon, Reston is influenced by Garden City principles, emphasizing preservation of open space, complete community amenities, and a variety of housing types. Our bus and walking tour will take us into the center of these communities to understand their origins and more recent adaptations.
Tour Facilitator:
Shelly Mastran, Professor in Practice, Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, Virginia Tech – National Capital Region and Immediate Past Board Chair, Reston Historic Trust and Museum
Sunday Tour B, November 3, 9:00 am – Noon
Arlington Urban?
AICP Continuing Education Credit – 2.5 CM
In this bus tour we are guided through the urbanization of Arlington’s downtown in the Clarendon neighborhood and learn about the communities affected by the shifts in the architectural landscape. Catalysts for change stem from the County’s commitment to a Smart Growth planning model, and while the successes in density, design, and development are evident, the loss of midcentury modern, commercial buildings and the relocation of the region’s Little Saigon may not be. Participants will discover both as the tour moves from Clarendon on the Rosslyn/Ballston metro corridor to the Eden Center at the western edge of the county. In Clarendon, we will rediscover Little Saigon and at the Eden Center, we will experience the vibrancy of the Vietnamese community today and its cultural heritage.
Note: There are walking elements to the tour. Tasting at the Eden Center is included.
Tour Facilitators:
Elizabeth Morton, Associate Professor of Practice, Urban Affairs and Planning, Virginia Tech – National Capital Region
Kim O’Connell, Independent Researcher and Writer, author of Echoes of Little Saigon: Vietnamese Immigration and the Changing Face of Arlington