The Runback: Sometimes You're The Problem Too
Welcome to another week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please be sure to follow on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
News and Politics
CD6 GOP Fundraising: Tom Royals Leads With $172,827 In 2024: Neil Parrott in second place with $141,700 Raised in 2024 for a $259,843 total. Cox a distant 4th.
We Did Have A Solution to Immigration: Trump Told Republicans to Nix The Bill: The far right of the Republican Party and the Republican leaders in the House and the Senate have been providing significant disinformation regarding The Border Security Act that never made it through the Senate. And the Republican electorate still buys the lies.
Larry Hogan: The Ideal Senate Choice for Maryland Republicans: Among the potential candidates, former Governor Larry Hogan emerges as a standout choice for the Republican nomination due to his pragmatic and moderate track record.
Will Nicolee Ambrose Have A Challenger? Rumors swirl that Vikki Birkett will jump in National Committeewoman race
Business
Cadillac: From Classic Luxury to Cutting-Edge Innovation: The story of Cadillac, a division of General Motors, is one of resilience, innovation, and an unwavering commitment to luxury.
Candidate Surveys
Dana Schallheim for Anne Arundel County Board of Education, District 5
Erica MacFarland for Anne Arundel County Board of Education, District 3
Worth a Read
On the Mother of All Questions: Freedom’s answer to zero-sum thinking.
The Monday Thought
One of the most important hot-button issues in Anne Arundel County is the development of the Pasadena Golf Center property into (what else) new housing.
Accidental Anne Arundel County Executive and wealthy horseman Steuart Pittman has introduced legislation (Bills 27-24 and 28-24) that would rezone the 31.8 property to R-10. That classification allows “semi-detached, duplex and townhouses with a maximum density of 10 units per acre”.
If you have been anywhere near Pasadena, you know that Pasadena can’t sustain another massive development of high-density housing. The environment can’t handle it. The schools can’t handle it. The infrastructure can’t handle it. Traffic, already unsustainable in the Mountain Road corridor during rush hour, can’t handle it. The fragile environment in Pasadena, its swamps, woodlands, and aquifer, can’t handle it. Especially since the Brumwell Flea Market property less than a mile up Mountain Road is itself in the middle of colossal commercial and residential development.
Not that Steuart Pittman cares; he cares only about creating “affordable, high-density housing”, the environment, sustainability, and quality of life in Pasadena be damned.
The most interesting thing about all of this is the fact that this issue has highlighted an issue that I have been noticing for over 25 years: beneficiaries of growth are often critical of further growth.
The number of people who live in Greater Pasadena, specifically in the area circled below, has exploded in the last twenty years.
Many of those new residents are living in housing that has been constructed in the last twenty years. In every nook, corner, and cranny in Pasadena, single-family and townhouses have been built.
I first noticed this phenomenon back in Carroll County in the late 1990’s. When I was attending college up in Western Maryland College, development was always a hot-button issue. But the issue was always driven by Democrats who fled Baltimore County and Baltimore City for the more pristine areas of Carrol County. They left those areas because of the congestion, the traffic, and the overdevelopment. They bemoaned growth in Carroll County while at the same time demanding the same services and amenities that they caused the problems they hated in Baltimore County and Baltimore City.
Now, here in 2024 in Pasadena, many of the people who are critical of the development of this property at the Pasadena Golf Center themselves were people who have moved to Pasadena in the last twenty years in new housing developments that have popped up on the Pasadena Peninsula. After all, the population in the 21122 ZIP code grew 6.8% during the last twenty years.
Does that make them wrong to protest this development? Of course not. The redevelopment of the Pasadena Golf Center is worthy of criticism from all residents of Pasadena, not just people who have been here for fifty years.1 But I hope that it brings pause to the idea that this part of Anne Arundel County needs further and further building, whether commercial OR residential.
When I drive through Pasadena these days, particularly a part of town I don’t always frequent, I always get flabbergasted that there is a new plot of land, no matter how tiny, that new construction is occurring on. New townhouses. New apartments. New commercial construction. Did Pasadena need another strip mall? Of course not, especially with all of the commercial land that was already in need of redevelopment. But there it was.
Yes, despite my heavy conservative leanings I am very much against pointless suburban sprawl.
I welcome all of Pasadena’s newcomers to this fight against further insane development projects. But I just recognize that they entered this fight as part of the problem; they need to now be part of the solution.
And trust me, there is a TON of this tribalism in Pasadena and the relationships between people who live in Pasadena and people who are “Old Pasadena.”