Reporting On Symphony Woods

I spent the weekend lashing together a video package on Symphony Woods. What follows are the views of Columbia residents. Do you agree with the views expressed by residents?

Three Sides to Symphony Woods

This weekend, Ive been shooting a video package about Symphony Woods. I've walked around the various open spaces in Columbia, getting reaction shots from residents. I've interviewed Greg Hamm, Cy Paumier and Barbara Russell. Residents I've talked to seem to take one of three sides on the issue.

Some residents think General Growth Properties knows what's best for the woods and should revitalize the property. During my interview with Hamm, he stressed that the ZRA-113 plan was designed and influenced by GGP, and that the plan should not be seen entirely as GGP's.

Some residents think Symphony Woods should be left the way it is, the way Jim Rouse intended. Yes a third of the trees in the forest are dead. Yes few people actually use the park space. No, don't remove a single stump. Green space is a luxury in Columbia, and should be left undeveloped.

Finally, some residents believe Symphony Woods should be revitalized but not by General Growth Properties, claiming that the basis for GGP's plan is essentially to pull the company back from the brink of bankruptcy by acquiring the land and immediately selling it off to the highest bidder. These residents think the plan created by Cy Paumier should be enacted instead.

As a journalist, I believe in the subjective objectivity of each story, that its important to view the story from all sides. As a young resident with a vested interest in the future of my city, I'm not convinced GGP has the right idea or the right motives. I remember reading that two of Rouse's goals for Columbia were to respect the land and make money, obviously. I believe respecting the land is paramount. The market economy functions on the same rules as the natural ecology, adapt or die. I don't want to see any more development in Symphony Woods. I believe the woods should be revitalized, but not at the cost of residential and commercial units.

What do you think? Does it really matter that few people use the woods, that there aren't any paths running through the space? Do you care that the trees are dead and would you want them removed anyways? Are you sitting on the fence? Would you like to let it be? Or would you like to see what Symphony Woods can become?

A Conversation With Barbara Russell

"You ran into people wherever you went, except the mail box (laughs), never at the mailbox! When I would go shopping at the Giant in Wilde Lake, it would take me literally hours to get out of there, not that I was shopping so much but you know you'd have a conversation in every isle, in isle four with Helen and you know that's how it was with everybody. You'd go to the grocery store and you'd spend an eternity there because you met everybody you knew and you just had conversations."

One summer day in 1967, Barbara and Charles Russell were driving down Route 29 from Baltimore to visit friends in Rockville when they noticed the do not enter sign near the development of Columbia had been removed, so they entered. In July, they moved in, become two of the first 100 residents in Columbia.

"There was almost nothing in Columbia at the time, there wasn't even a village center. In fact, when we drove around there were these little muddy circles and we asked somebody what they were and they said oh those are going to be cul-de-sacs. And we said what the heck are cul-de-sacs?"

At the time, the Russells had followed their jobs at the Social Security Administration from California. Before moving to Columbia, they had lived in Woodlawn and even had to get married in Washington D.C., because it was illegal for an interracial couple to marry in Maryland.

"When I married Charles, my family was dead set against it and they felt and told me that they thought that I would forever be living on the fringes of society and my children."

Russell says that for most of the early residents, Columbia was their first experience in an integrated community. She recalls the day an older couple moved into the apartment above them. They mistook Charles for the maintenance man, requesting that he help them move in.

"So he did, he helped them move their stuff upstairs and when he was all finished he said let me introduce myself, I'm your neighbor Charles Russell, from the apartment down below."

42 years later, Russell thinks things have changed, that after James Rouse stopped driving the Rouse Company, the bottom line took the wheel instead of the vision. In her mind, the biggest problem of early Columbia was public transportation. When asked about current problems, she spoke about General Growth Properties.

"GGP is not giving anything to the county, it just wants the density and zoning changes worth billions and is not agreeing to pay for the costs of infrastructure to pay for affordable housing, to pay for cultural amenities, its not, it doesn't want to pay and hasn't promised to pay and hasn't agreed to pay for anything. And now it can't afford to pay for anything. And so it would be in my mind, a real rip if you will off to the taxpayers, to allow them to do that without any of the trade offs."