Drew,
I agree with the bulk of your analysis. During the past ten years, the discourse of American urban planning has undergone some fundamental changes. Today, there is more of an emphasis on smart growth, which is, in a way, a return to the form of the early 1900s.
One hundred years ago, cities did not plan around the automobile; they planned for the pedestrian. They planned for rich, vibrant, walkable, and scalable neighborhoods and commercial districts. They developed extensive streetcar systems. Cities were planned in intuitive and elaborate grids– always with an attention to the location of civic institutions such as schools, post offices, and courthouses.
When Alexandria was first developed, it followed these basic patterns. Our inner core is, indeed, an example of traditional city planning, whereas development throughout the past fifty years (beginning in and around 1960) has followed the script of American sprawl development– large lot single family homes in cul-de-sac subdivisions, a noticeable segregation of zoning uses, and little emphasis on the pedestrian or the bicyclist.
I have read practically all of the comprehensive, strategic, and/or master plans produced for the City of Alexandria throughout the past 15 to 20 years, and while I agree with you on practically everything else, I cannot agree with you about the purpose or intent of the Alexandria Urban Master Plan.
Of course, the automobile must be considered in any planning document; it’s an inescapable reality of American life. To be sure, the Alexandria Urban Master Plan is nearly a decade old, and no one believes that it is universally applicable or implementable. (Though I think you’d be surprised to realize how prescient parts of the plan actually are).
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With that said, I think we have to acknowledge that Downtown redevelopment is– in and of itself– not a panacea for inner core redevelopment. Focusing on our riverfront and what the Mayor calls “activity corridors” with equal enthusiasm can enrich much more of Alexandria and affect many more citizens.
The Urban Master Plan is not Alexandria’s only “master plan.” Indeed, the planners who drafted the document were charged with a very specific task: the redevelopment of a certain geographical area within the City. And in my opinion, it does a suburb job identifying and addressing future land uses, walkability, and greenspace. But again, this specific document is not the entire city’s “master plan.”
Before the Alexandria Urban Master Plan, there was Alexandria 2010, which is an exceptional document created back in 1992. 2010 is, among other things, concerned with demographic changes throughout the entire City and was written in anticipation of the closure of England Air Force Base. It includes bold recommendations for things such as a Greenway Linear Park throughout the City as well as practical recommendations for the number of single-family and multi-family housing units (projected to be needed).
2010 is probably the most comprehensive planning document the City possesses, and fortunately, since most of it is concerned with addressing projected demographic needs (and not with the types of development, per se), the document is still relevant and applicable, though obviously in need of a few updates.
The City also possesses plans for the Ruston Foundry, Interstate 49, and, of course, the McElroy Strategic Plan, which is primarily concerned with the redevelopment of Alexandria’s main corridors.
Notably, every single one of these plans was developed after consultation with neighborhood groups, community leaders, business people, and other stakeholders. Some documents may represent a greater diversity of opinion than others, but, still, all of them relied on citizen input.
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Simply put, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here.
Smart growth teaches us what works and what doesn’t work.
Of course, Alexandria is a unique place with our own unique opportunities and challenges.
CenLamar 
I should have been a bit more descriptive in my post about why I am not a big fan of the masterplan. It really is an impressive (and long) document.
However I think it fails us really in the fact that it is too centrally planned. It centers around very carefully dividing its target zone into specific idealized uses but fails to address certain key shortcomings to both existing downtown structure and future development.
There are some things that are innovative to say the least — like the arts district. But the arts district alone is nothing more than a facility without a soul. Compare that to the French Quarter where the local arts scene is complimented and fed by a mass of resident artists and entertainers — people who live and work where they display their arts.
Many of the innovative concepts of the Master Plan to take into account the needs of the metro area in whole, but do not adequately address the needs of downtown (and other areas) as a community in itself.
The plan has walking paths and parks, but these are still planned around a driving environment. This sort of redesign serves mainly to provide a pleasant to look at whitewash to unsolved problems. Take for instance the city’s recent streetscaping project. The area improved looks nicer, but it is still no more useful in that instead of going for deep sidewalks that could host merchants or activities and added bike paths that could make downtown more usable and travel safer, we chose to simply put a new facade on the same exact sidewalks we had with the preservation of parking spaces taking precedence over useful innovation.
If I remember correctly the Master Plan also repeats that local favourite call for more parking garages. I often think that if some had their way we would only have parking towers a theatre and a few churches downtown. That’s not what we need. We need a reason fro people to get out of their cars and walk and enjoy downtown.
This brings me to my main gripe I have. Parking is necessary in our world no matter how much we would like to avoid it. People — resident people living, working, and shopping downtown are an absolute requirement for successful development, no matter how well landscaped it is.
For this to happen in an area as small as out downtown will require proactive code development and guided development. The recent Red River Bank for instance is an example of a failure on the part of our leader to guide development. A single story, single use property that takes up quite a bit of space and provides little input into the downtown market or community.
The model for a downtown like our will require a building code that provides for minimum multi-use standards. For instance – the first floor of a building should be dedicated to retail, restaurant, or service type business; the second floor either office or retail; the 3rd and 4th floors at least 50% residential. Parking should be integrated into the building not assigned to an adjacent lot — basement garages, or rooftop parking. It’s used in New Orleans quite a bit.
Basically, a master plan without a focus on the very local level on the needs of people who will live and work there is like having a garden, plowing the rows, spreading the fertilizer, hoping it will rain and waiting to see if someone else will bring the seeds.
I’m not saying don’t use it. I’m just saying take everything with a grain of salt.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t entirely disagree with your assessment. In fact, I agree with most of what you’re saying. I just think it’s important for people to understand that the Urban Master Plan is simply not the same as a Comprehensive Master Plan. The Urban Master Plan’s scope was purposely limited, and of course, some of it is no longer applicable. For example, Rapides Regional now owns a portion of Third Street, which means we need to now determine how to maintain a route from the OK Allen Bridge through Downtown and into Lower Third (i.e. the extension of Sixth and Foisy Streets).
Regarding the streetscape project, there are two schools of thought on this. Many places which attempted to widen sidewalks and close down streets actually ended up contributing to the decline of a particular area. Whereas if you can figure out a way of maintaining accessibility AND, at the same time, slowing down traffic (through innovative traffic calming methods, landscaping, asphalt stamping, etc), you accomplish two things: The area becomes beautified, and it becomes easier for pedestrians to negotiate around traffic (because the traffic is slowed down). I-49 already cut off access to and from our downtown. We don’t need it to be even more isolated.
Parking is a trickier problem. Some people say that a downtown with a parking problem is a successful downtown. Indeed, a friend of mine who owns a business downtown repeats this as a mantra. There are probably legitimate points on both sides of this debate. Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree with your notions of how to integrate parking into land use and land development codes. If parking is treated as an after-thought (and not as a responsibility of the development), then we all end up paying to mitigate a problem that should have been addressed at the beginning.
I don’t view the Red River Bank building as a failure in any way. I think it’s a contributing and conforming use; however, I think we do need to have a discussion on design guidelines in our historic districts.
You make some excellent points.
I’ve often thought about how you can’t just IMPOSE an arts district onto an area– that successful arts districts are organic and built from the ground up.
I also agree with minimal multi-use standards, but we have to recognize that not everything is suitable for multi-use.