Is the District running out of land to put new development? The Brooking Institute’s Christopher B. Leinberger made that argument during a recent presentation at the National Building Museum. As part of his presentation, he proposed modifying the long-standing height restriction on D.C. buildings as one way to accommodate more growth in the city. The […]
How Many Group Houses?
It occurred to me in a class session about U.S. Census data this week that it would be possible to research the number of group houses in D.C. and other places around the country. The census ask the number of members of the households and whether they constitute a family on the short form, meaning […]
The D.C. Group House and the ‘Beanbag Circle of Judgement’
Thanks to a consistent high demand for rental housing and a large stock of spacious row houses, Washington, D.C., has a large number of group houses. Well known by locals, I’ll define the group house as a house or apartment with a revolving group of four or more unrelated roommates who share a common kitchen, […]
‘Urban Appalachian Trail’ Almost One-Quarter Complete
For the last 16 years a group of trails and cycling advocates have worked largely in obscurity to create a vision for an “urban Appalachain Trail”: a 3,000 mile off-road trail from Key West, Florida to Calais, Maine for bikers and hikers. Headquartered in the Rhode Island-based East Coast Greenway Alliance, the trail’s backers work […]
Blogging for Engagement in College Park
Can a blog help bring new participants to the planning process? We’re not sure, but we’re trying. Two recent articles describe the progress we’ve made since launching Rethink College Park six months ago. The first is from today’s edition of The Diamondback, the campus student newspaper. When then-graduate student Brian Carroll defended his thesis on […]
Upside Down Washington
Thanks to a mixture of history, geography, and custom, north is up on almost every map made in the world. Some attribute the practice to the ancient Egyptian scholar Ptolemy, however thanks to the distribution of landmass in the world the most prolific mapmaking civilizations have called the northern hemisphere home. So-called upside down maps […]
D.C.’s Historic Districts and the Architecture of Gentrification
The District of Columbia has some of the the strongest historic preservation laws of any major U.S. city with thousands of structures preserved either as individual sites or part of historic districts. In the city’s 27 historic districts, construction of any type must be approved by the city’s Historic Preservation Office. Major projects or new […]