Time
June 11, 2009, Lisa Selin Davis

There's something deeply wrong with Tysons Corner. For starters, Virginia's bustling commercial district — the 12th biggest employment center in the nation — has more parking spaces than jobs or residents. What was a quaint intersection of two country roads 50 years ago is now a two-tiered interchange with 10 lanes of traffic-choked hell; try to cross it on foot, and you're taking your life into your hands. Located about 14 miles west of downtown Washington, the nearly 1,700-acre area is home to fortresses of unfriendly buildings surrounded by oceans of parking lots, as well as single-story car dealerships, strip malls, fast-food joints, highways and a big toll road. Pedestrians are personae non gratae here. What few sidewalks exist often abruptly end. Related Travel 10 Things to Do in New York City Travel 10 Things to Do in Washington D.C. Travel 10 Things to Do in Chicago More Related * Road Rage and Socratic Dialogue * A way to feel morally superior to the people in the next county over * Trouble in Tel Aviv The overgrown office park — which sprang up around Tysons Corner Center, the ninth largest indoor mall in the U.S. — has become the opposite of a bedroom community. Some 120,000 people work in Tysons, but only 17,000 live here. "Every morning, 110,000 cars arrive, and they all leave at 5," says Clark Tyler, a former federal transportation official and the chairman of a task force whose ambitious goal is to help transform Tysons into a full-fledged city — where people live and work and play 24 hours a day. ...

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