“Urbanist Hero of the Week” proclaimed the blog Greater Greater Washington (ggwash.org) back in December of 2018. The writer, Sanjida Rangwala, praised newly elected Councilmember Evan Glass for taking the bus on his first day at work.
This council includes three new at-large members—Evan Glass, Will Jawando, and Gabe Albornoz—as well a new member for District 1 Andrew Friedson and returning members Hans Riemer, Tom Hucker, Nancy Navarro, Sidney Katz, and Craig Rice.
Mr. Glass wanted to show his commitment to “density” and mass transit you see, so he took (and chronicled) his 80+ minute bus commute from Silver Spring to Rockville for his first day on the job. Work which pays Mr. Glass quite well, as we’ve reported. Well enough for Mr. Glass to be the landlord of two additional properties, in addition to his very well-off home in Silver Spring, MD. But we digress. Here is the original headline:
So – what is an urbanist? Well, the internet tells us it is “an advocate of or expert in city planning.” Ah, that is also to say – an advocate of central planning, which is a key economic and sociological concept / ideology that rages on to this day, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Communists, or those attracted to command-and-control planned economies are necessarily attracted to central planning. The two go hand-in-hand. People attracted to the “urbanist” label may not be economic communists or want to control “the means of production”, but they do believe only they know what is best for a city or a populace at-large, and if they don’t, they’ll simply defer to a small cabal of “experts” in… city planning. Roads? New bridges? Updated traffic signals? It all has to go in front of the “experts”, you see.
These urbanists, particularly in MoCo politics, are obsessed with “mass transit” – but as something to be used by others, not themselves. Sure, they may ride the bus on occasion or snap a pic of themselves on the metro platform — but they all drive their privately owned (and generally high priced) cars, everywhere. Heck, Councilmember Will Jawando owns an estate with a 3-car garage built into the mansion. Per Google Street Images taken in November of 2022, he also appears to own a BMW or some other moderately high-end vehicle.
Back in 2019, many of the MoCo Council participated in the so-called “#TransitChallenge”. This was an attention-grabbing ploy by an entity called Action Committee for Transit (a 501c4 non-profit that advocates for more and more metro funding and lobbies constantly). Notice what inspired this #TransitChallenge. It wasn’t traffic resolution or moving people from point A to point B faster and cheaper and with greater safety — it was social justice activists in Canada:
So, anyways, with this “urbanist” label defined and some of the local media stunt of 2019 revisited — what exactly have the “urbanist champions” of the MoCo Council, principally CMs Jawando, Glass and Albornoz actually accomplished in nearly six years as urbanist politicians and transit committee people?
A quick review of the national and local headlines around transit, traffic and travel issues in MoCo and the DC region should reveal their rousing successes as urbanist central planners! Let us have a look.
Per CNBC.com in January 2024:
Per the WashingtonPost.com this month:
Per reporter Kate Ryan at WTOP.com last July:
Per reporter Kevin Lewis formerly of 7news / WJLA back in April, 2022:
Ah yes. Rousing success in centrally planning MoCo’s transit!
