Thread for talking about the built environment and transit of your cities and urban/suburban areas (How to Train your Train is related but not the same)
I have something to start off the thread
1. DC vs the MD suburbs
ever since moving out to the MD suburbs for my gf’s work i’ve been bemoaning the lack of walkability. It’s more dense than suburbs in most parts of the country, but I still miss living in south Petworth - a DC neighborhood where i could walk to multiple corner stores, a big grocery stores, 2+ bars, 4+ restaurants, all within 5-15 minutes.
Legendarily, DC adheres to its original city plan and has no major crosscutting highways - here’s a fantastic historical article on the 1960s/70s fight to keep highways from bulldozing much of DC, including this neighborhood. Many cities across the country lost similar fights 
by contrast, a main feature of the northwest DC suburbs in Montgomery County MD is MD-355, which really hamstrings the ability to create transit oriented development along the route. If you think about it, subway stations aligned directly along a highway means any development along that corridor will be automatically bifurcated by a massive pedestrian unfriendly road.
In DC, MD-355 is the recognizably urban Wisconsin Ave, a walkable street which runs through the heart of Georgetown’s high-end retail district
In the close MD suburbs, it’s better when the Metro is still underground, albeit a little plastic and artificial. Friendship Heights Village (just northwest of the Red Line metro stop) has the highest population density of any incorporated or census-designated place in the USA.
Downtown Bethesda is probably the most urban example, where there seems to be an actual city-like fabric, tall buildings, restaurants, bougie coffee shops, etc
but out beyond that, we are well and truly in Stroad Hell. Massive parking craters, massive highway, single family zoning right next to the Metro station, all kinds of nonsense
special missed opportunities at Twinbrook, which drowns some extremely high quality Chinese and other Asian restaurants in an absolute sea of surface parking
and Rockville has a very cute downtown, but to get there from east of the tracks, you have to cross an eight lane highway (or a Ped bridge over said highway which is not enjoyable). the downtown is walled on all sides by major roads and everyone ends up driving there to experience the pedestrianized streets which seems… stupid.
the intersection of 355 and Park Rd at the corner of downtown, which has 25 (!!) approach lanes and is deadly to cross on foot
Finally, Shady Grove is just a massive park and ride, but it’s the end of the line so what do you expect.
so what?
Contrast all this with Arlington County, VA. Just on the opposite side of the Potomac from DC, when Metro was first extended to this area, my understanding is that local officials fought to have the alignment not along the massive highway I-66, as was originally planned, but instead along Wilson Boulevard, a relatively narrow arterial with two lanes per direction. The result is that you can see the urbanization of the Orange/Silver line between Rosslyn and Ballston metro stations from space.
Anyways, this is a lot of words about how I’m mad I can’t walk five minutes to a corner store. Been binge watching a lot of CityNerd videos.
