30 miles north of Washington, DC, Montgomery County is trying to build a new kind of suburb in Clarksburg, one that looks more like a small town and where residents don't have to drive everywhere. It hasn't totally worked. But Clarksburg might actually have something to teach closer-in communities about how to grow sustainably.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve made it a tradition to go to Clarksburg at least once a year and tour some model houses. I remember visiting one model house there on a cold, gray day in December 2007. The sales agent, Dorothy, took me on a tour of the whole house, ending at a little balcony overlooking the backyard. As far as we could see there were other houses with beige siding and grey roofs. I asked her, what do you think of this view? And she said, “I try to think about it like I’m looking out over the rooftops of Paris.”

Maybe that’s a little rich. I will say that Clarksburg is somewhat different than what we traditionally conceive of as a suburban community: big houses, big lawns, and lots of driving. As Montgomery County's older suburbs try to create the walkable, transit-oriented places that people increasingly want, Clarksburg might offer a few lessons.

The Clarksburg Plan

In the 1960s, Montgomery County created the “Wedges and Corridors” concept, which basically laid out how the county would grow over the next 50 years. It broke the county up into four parts: an “urban ring” inside the Beltway, containing commutes like Bethesda and Silver Spring; two “wedges” on either side of I-270, containing suburban areas; and a “corridor” along I-270 itself, with five “corridor cities” along it: North Bethesda, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, and Clarksburg. At the edges of the county, one-third of its land would be set aside for agriculture.