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Day 39

day 39Today’s walk was through a neighborhood the assessors office calls Lakeview Island and the signage in the neighborhood calls Lakeside.  The lake in question is Reservoir #3, the westernmost of a chain of reservoirs located between Richmond and Alumni just inside New Circle Road.  Though functionally a reservoir, it still provides lake-like views and lake views demand a premium.  These are nice houses, and modern ranch-style houses dominate, giving away the neighborhood’s approximate age.

A few things are evident.  First, this area does not have a high degree of turnover.  It feels stable, though too much stability can set a neighborhood up for relatively drastic change as older residents move away.  This neighborhood seems like it may be headed in that direction, with little of the evidence of young families with kids that most neighborhoods have. It also seemed to lack, not character exactly, but perhaps that level of consistent and quality effort at creating space that really impressed me in Henry Clay on Day 38. Some places did have quality landscaping or other work done, but it just wasn’t consistent.  Too many places had large unbroken lawns, often on hills that probably made them difficult to mow but unsuitable for much else (except sledding!)

Modern Ranch in the Lakeside neighborhood
Modern Ranch in the Lakeside neighborhood

What works: interesting architecture

What doesn’t: premium prices mean this neighborhood seems house rich and cash poor.

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Day 33

day33Today, I had my first shot at walking through Chevy Chase.  While I had some expectations based on its location and designation as a historic neighborhood that it would fit a relatively urban typology, it seemed more in line with the quiet but very nice suburban areas around Andover or Chilesburg, although there are some pre-World War II apartment houses located along Cochran as well as some duplexes from about the same time.

As in many other neighborhoods within a similar market range, there is a lot of construction going on here.  It ranges from simple painting to more ambitious remodels (including one landscaping project where the architect’s sign in the yard proclaimed they were “building someone’s dream”).  In general, the recent work done to houses in the neighborhood appeared to make the neighborhood more like its cousins outside New Circle Road in spite of the restrictive design criteria.

Parklet at the end of Chenault
Parklet at the end of Chenault

Any single person or family moving to a neighborhood changes it, perhaps almost imperceptibly.  The sum of those changes can reflect a greater shift, and I wonder if that is happening in Chevy Chase (though of course, it’s much harder to tell with my very limited exposure to the area).

What works: The parklet at the end of Chenault

What doesn’t: Existing design criteria may not be sufficient to preserve the neighborhood’s (built) character.

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Day 17

day 17I really wasn’t sure what to expect from

today’s route, through the Kenwick neighborhood, but it turned out to have a little bit of everything.  I still compare things to Denver, and this neighborhood went quickly between warehouse district to streetcar suburb.  I started out on Aurora, headed northwest toward Walton and found a neighborhood that felt like home to a significant creative population.  These things are evidenced by things like the landscaped vegetable garden on Aurora, or the book exchange “birdhouse” on Richmond.  This blended naturally into the commercial districts along Walton, National and Ashland, with it’s high concentration of home design shops and local shops—places like Kentucky Mudworks.  As I walked back down National, the mix became more industrial and eventually turned to utter ruins at White Street.  This is a neighborhood that seems comfortable with the industrial presence.

Dead-end street as plaza
Dead-end street as plaza

One street that dead-ends into the back of an industrial block has turned that end into an outdoor plaza, making it an idyllic setting despite the industrial whine and occasional sawing noise.  And they also seem at home with their neighbors.  I spotted no fewer than three front yard hammocks, and one yard had an entire backyard’s worth of kid toys, complete with sandpit.  One gentleman I passed was working on his crossword puzzle while sitting on a collapsible lawn chair in the front yard.  All of this was refreshing…this neighborhood very much answers my question about what to do about worthless grass front lawns in suburbia, alas generally in ways that aren’t covenant friendly.

A homemade 'book exchange"
A homemade ‘book exchange”

Despite the comfort and overall amiability, there feels like some tension.  Some homes clash, with for example, loud threats of physical violence to trespassers.  These places were amazingly jarring to me, especially among very little other evidence at the time that the neighborhood was dangerous (which is borne out by crime statistics, I might add)

What works:  This is a live/work dream, for those who could pull it off.  Front yards are focal points.
What doesn’t:  There is tension.  Why?

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Day 13

day 13Today took me to the Ashland area, behind the Shriner’s Hospital on Richmond Road.  Again, I walk through a neighborhood where my impression has to be that the home are above the median price for Lexington.  The neighborhood is nice, but not ostentatious.  Even here, the ends of cul-de-sacs tend to look more worn then the rest of the neighborhood.  The street corners have very large radii, and sure enough, cars zip through the area.  There seem to be a relatively high number of homes for sale, perhaps the market is bullish, or perhaps it is just slow.  There were a number of places undergoing facelifts, internally or externally, and several more having their lawns maintained, so overall, this area was a cacophony of saws, hammering, weed trimmers and lawn mowers.  My favorite place in the area (which happens to be for sale) has a wrought-iron fence surrounding a dense backyard garden.  Much like the sidewalks in Andover, I felt this really created a sense of intrigue.  Oddly enough, a lipsticked cigarette butt appeared in a sidewalk crack just down the street to provide a film noir feel.

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Day 9

Today I strolled through the Fairway neighborhood, located next to Idle Hour Country Club and along Richmond.  This is a neighborhood of homes built in the 1920’s and 30’s that tend to be on the larger side.  I passed some modest homes (for example, on Henry Clay) but many of the homes in this area are grand, tall houses often with front doors located well above street level.  This had some impact, as the scale felt different, more imposing than in newer middle-class neighborhoods.  This neighborhood is laid out in a connected street grid, and the block length for the portion I walked is reasonable (around 750 feet; blocks to the northeast are longer), with the end result that the neighborhood felt comfortable and walkable despite the imposing homes.  As you might expect in an old neighborhood, this area has some very tall trees; the wide tree lawns allow larger tree trunks than the 3 foot margins currently common.

It was difficult not to walk in this neighborhood and not be conscious of the fact that these were homes to people who are doing well financially; perhaps not rich but certainly upper middle class.  It comes out in the homes but also in the density of not just visual experience by auditory and olfactory experience.  Variety not just in homes but in how yards are landscaped (thinking toward my question from my Day 8 walk, some yards have completely eliminated grass in favor of other ground cover that presumably doesn’t require nearly as much care).  There were more smells, too, from a variety of plants to mundane home smells, and perhaps the canopy of trees kept smells in.

Peeking through the hedge at the end of Kingsway to a playground on the other side

As it may have with sounds as well, since, the outdoors provided more variety of sounds, from a backyard fountain to the sounds of birds and kids playing that were clearer here than in past neighborhoods.

I think my dissatisfaction with planning largely arose from the fact that I felt it failed some of its social justice aims by making nice neighborhoods safe for gentrification while ignoring neighborhoods with significant design failures.  Simple economics drives less wealthy families out of good (in the planning sense) neighborhoods into neighborhoods that provide less interest, fewer opportunities for serendipitous discovery.  So what it is, exactly, about these nice, wealthy neighborhoods that make them so nice and to what extent could these things be copied, affordably (and ideally by residents ourselves) into the neighborhoods we can afford?