| Moving On
Richard reflects on four years of the Big Acorn |
For a look at some of Richard Jaeggi's Big Acorn columns, go to the Voice archive here. |
One of the consolations of
growing older is the satisfaction
of looking back and marveling at how life’s plodding footsteps are magically compiled by the calculus of time into a real journey. I wrote my first Big Acorn article in May of 2002. Today I write my last. After forty-eight columns and four laps around the sun I am struck by the ground we have covered.
In 2002 County Councilmember, Blair Ewing, was organizing a slow growth coalition to challenge Montgomery County’s established pro-development forces in the coming election; Ewing, et al, were subsequently flattened in November by County Executive Doug Duncan, and his well financed End Gridlock steamroller.
In 2002, after two years of disappointments, phase 2 of the Downtown Silver Spring development project was finally back on track, when Foulger-Pratt signed a lease with anchor tenant, Consolidated Theatres, to build a 20-screen, state of the art movie house at the corner of Fenton and Ellsworth.
Alas, phase 3, the public phase of our public-private partnership, envisioning a civic building and a public plaza, still remains about two years into the future—pretty much where it has been every year since the Armory was torn down in 1998.
Oh, well, at least there’s consolation in knowing that our PlastoTurf probably makes Bethesda green with envy.
In 2002 the downtown residential housing boom was just beginning in earnest with the announcement by JBG Companies that it would convert the old Art Deco style Canada Dry bottling plant into two hundred units of residential housing. Since that time a stampede of real estate developers have all heard the cry of condomania and submitted their plans to build a total of over 3,000 proposed units of housing downtown. Naturally these will include some 300 units of affordable housing for Montgomery County’s needy families—at least the ones with annual incomes between $50,000 - $60,000.
And how about that Voice? Way back in the day, there was only the Takoma Voice, the quirky mouthpiece for a quirky no-nukes suburb east of Berkeley. In 2002 Voice publisher, Eric Bond, launched the Silver Spring Voice, this suburb’s first real community paper.
I don’t mean by this to take anything away from The Gazette. It is a solid suburban weekly, but it is not a community newspaper. A genuine community newspaper must reflect the style of its community, suggest its flavor, and, without trying too hard, express its identity. The Gazette never intended to do this. A quick glance— pick a suburb, any suburb— will quickly establish that each paper looks and reads exactly alike. The Gazette (owned by The Washington Post) is essentially an efficient, and presumably profitable, medium for delivering local news content to suburban localities that have been neglected by the gravitas of The Washington Post.
This is not to say that the Silver Spring Voice has entirely succeeded as a community paper. A lot of progress has been made, it is true: the calendar, the number of Silver Spring writers, the coverage of local events— and yet as a community newspaper the Silver Spring Voice remains a work in progress. Unlike the Takoma Voice, which is the very archetype of an authentic community journal, the Silver Spring Voice still strives to distinguish itself as something more than Takoma Voice West.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” |
And this is no criticism but the recognition of a great adventure. Beyond the buildings, the redevelopment of Silver Spring has been an experiment in community self-discovery; many distinct voices— the County, the developers, the neighborhoods, and more recently, broad-based, ethnically inclusive organizations like Impact Silver Spring— have all offered a definition of what it means to be Silver Spring. This is very exciting stuff. |
My fascination with this experiment was the inspiration for the first Big Acorn column four years ago and it continues to inspire me to this day, even while I write my last article. My original aim was to combine wit, insight, and a keen eye for all things Silver Spring in a column that would inspire the people of our town to move beyond anxiety over its image to a proud understanding of its unique identity. Silver Spring, know thyself.
In those forty-eight columns I never succeeded in combining all three, wit, insight, and a keen eye, in a single article, and yet I hope that each contained some nugget that could amuse, inspire, or inform.
In June, I am going to start an entirely different column, something that is both more personal and more universal.. My move is inspired by a wise man who once said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Self-reinvention is a good thing for suburbs… and writers, too.
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