About a year ago, Manassas embarked on our ill-fated attempt to do something about the overcrowding situation in our City. The outcome of that adventure is still not clear but the ordinance was taken off the books a couple of weeks after its passage. We are still waiting for the Department of Justice to render a decision in the matter. It may take an extended period of time to settle this once and for all.

I was elected after most of that took place. Since then (and for whatever reason), the number of complaints to the overcrowding hotline have dropped significantly but, as I drive and walk through our neighborhoods, I still see lots of problems. Not the overcrowding variety of problems (you don’t really see those on a walk-though of a neighborhood) but traditional “City” problems like trash in yards and around dumpsters, houses slated for demolition that are now vacant and run down, houses with cars parked in the yard (5 in one I saw – most seemed immoble) and the like. Problems that have been problems since the dawn of civilization (well, maybe not the cars). These are dangerous issues as they may be subtle and don’t happen all at once but the net effect is a gradual downward pressure on the neighborhood. The good news is these are nuts and bolts problems that Cities know how to deal with.

To this end, The City has recently hired a Zoning enforcement person to handle these complaints (the job was empty for awhile) so hopefully some of these problems will abate somewhat. I’m looking into a consolidated, streamlined way to handle the complaint process and the requisite City response but it will take a little bit of time. In the meantime, my question to you, is what am I missing? Is Manassas, for example, to the point of limiting the number of cars you can park on the street? Some municipalities have parking districts that limit the number of cars that can be parked on the streets. What kind of “Quality of life” problems do you see that the city seems to be missing?

Scientists have been struggling for years to come up with a single unified theory that explains the very mundane while at the same time handling very exotic creations like quasars (or black holes or whatever) and their effect on surrounding space, etc. In this vein, I have come up with a unified theory that will help frame the debate concerning Manassas and her future direction. If not, it’s at least worth a laugh.

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Think of a yardstick. At 0 inches you have “City” and at the other end (36 inches) you have “Suburb”. This is our scale.

A perfect City, if it were to exist, would be at “0” on the scale and would be a lot like a smaller version of New York. It is very “City-ish” and has many of the qualities assigned to Cities: high population density, diversity, educational choices, culture, attractions and higher taxes. A perfect City is also a destination: people who don’t know a soul in New York go there to see the City or something in the City.
A perfect Suburb would be at “36” on the scale and would be somewhere that looks like Western Fairfax but has lower taxes. It would have low population density, decent schools, lower taxes but isn’t a “destination”. If they don’t live there, people wouldn’t go there for any reason other than to see people they know.

It is my position that the debate that is occuring in Manassas concerning every aspect of our shared public life is a debate over how “City-ish” Manassas should be.
Take a look at recent debates: Housing Density, Overcrowding, Budget, Traffic and Schools. These are the debates that a City has. Surely suburbs have these problems, right? Well, yes. The difference is that these debates have *all* occured here in the past 4 months and in conjunction with one another. We are dealing with City problems, not suburban or rural problems.

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The real question that we must answer is how City-ish do we want to become and is there room for a city of that size and/or intensity (I say “intensity” to convey density of commercial and residential space). The answer to this question will drive tax rates, commercial and residential space, overall economic health and most other things. We are, in my view, a “tweener” moving along at about a 20. We are building some new commercial (and residential) space but some of our older commercial space needs attention. Our older neighborhoods have mixed results but that problem seems fixable. We have some “cultural” resources but they are limited. We are a bit of a destination but that has more to do with a battlefield 15 miles away. As to wether there is room for a city of the intensity we select we need to consider that the commercial developers along 29 are building like the devil himself is driving them. How much of a consideration is that? If we become less City-ish (or stay the same) will our efforts to date simply fade as we are passed by?