What a Difference 40 Years Makes

After the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil disturbances erupted in over 100 cities across the U.S. In Washington, D.C., a civil disorder started at the intersection of 14th and U Streets Northwest, when an unknown individual threw a brick through a plate glass window.

Last night, thousands of people celebrated the election of Barack Obama at the very same intersection and in streets throughout the city. No doubt similar spontanious celebrations erupted in thousands of cities across the nation.

This year D.C. voted 92.9% for Barack Obama. In 2004, the city voted 89.2% for John Kerry, and roughly 85% for Al Gore in 2000 and Bill Clinton in 1996 and 1992.

See also Remembering 1968 and Understanding the 1960’s “Civil Disorders’

D.C.’s Black Majority to End in 2014

Given demographic trends since 2000, the District of Columbia will no longer have a Black majority somewhere around 2014. That’s what I found after completing a simple projection using U.S. Census population data from the 1990 and 2000 census, and 2006 and 2007 American Community Survey population estimates. No matter the approach (trends since 1990 or 2000, projecting population numbers or percentages), every projection (using the best fit line) found somewhere around 2014 would be the turning point when D.C. would enter a new racial era where no major group could claim a majority.

Since 1990, the Black share of the D.C. population has fallen 11.2%. That decline was made up by increases in four other categories: White (6.2%), Asian (1.2%), other (2.2%), and two or more races (1.6%). The U.S. Census Bureau allowed respondents to select multiple races for the first time in 2000, and asks separate questions for race and ethnicity. Over the same time period, the percent reporting Hispanic ethnicity has increased 2.9%.

Here is the Census data, with projections for 2010 and 2014 calculated from the trends since 2000 only:

My projection finds the Hispanic population relatively slowly growing. But unlike the Black and White population, this group may be subject to unique external influences such as immigration policy and global economic patterns that may reduce the validity of this projection.

A couple comments about these numbers. First, they show relatively gradual and ongoing demographic shifts, not abrupt change that most seem to assume is happening. Despite massive investments in a tiny majority of the city’s neighborhoods, D.C. only recently stabilized its population, let alone began to add significant population. Second, since 1990 the city has lost 77,958 Blacks but only gained 30,665 Whites. Collectively, the groups other race, two or more races, and Asian gained almost as many over the same period, 28,979. Overall, from 1990 to 2007 the city shrank by 18,608 people. The declining Black majority thus has three main causes: Black flight, growing White population, AND growing other racial categories.

Here’s the full table, including 2010 projections based on patterns since 2000:

Obviously, when the shift occurs it will have profound effects on the city. While I will refrain from making a judgment about what it will mean overall, I hope the analysis above shows it’s not primarily caused by any one factor, but several.

> NYTimes: “Washington’s Black Majority is Shrinking”
> W. Post: “D.C. May Be Losing Status As a Majority-Black City”

What Neighborhoods Will Be The Next Hot Spots?

In a splashy cover story this week, the quarterly magazine sent to thousands of local business leaders this week considers which Washington, D.C. neighborhoods will be the next “hot spots.”

The story appears in OnSite, a quarterly glossy magazine sent to subscribers of the Washington Business Journal. With a password-only website, the story’s only readers will be the 16,600+ subscribers who pay over $100 a year to receive the weekly newspaper.

Featuring incendiary graphics (above) and a map with the neighborhood identified with crosshairs, the article will do little to sooth the concerns of activists fearful their neighborhoods will be targets for new development with or without their input. Surprisingly, only 4 of the 13 are within the boundary of D.C., a sign of how much investment has happened in District neighborhoods and the barriers to additional development. In addition to the neighborhoods shown on the map below, the magazine additionally identified Gaithersburg and Laurel in Maryland and Occoquan in Virginia.

The article proposes a number of variables to predict where people “want to live, work and hang out.” They are: accessible to roads, near Metro or other rail, near water or riverfront, geographically distinctive, near parks and recreation, near anchor or stadium, upward economic capacity, arts uses, main gathering place, historical features, interesting architecture, and pedestrian oriented.

The most surprising locations may be Landover (picked due to the ongoing Landover Gateway planning effort), Greenbelt (which we covered on Rethink College Park), and Prince William County’s Occoquan.

Occoquan? Despite being over 20 miles from Washington, OnSite thinks the tiny historic town’s proximity to to I-95, several VRE stations, Fort Belvoir and Quantico bases, nearby “smart-growth style developments,” and attractive waterfront will make it a hotspot for growth.

What do you think of their picks? What places — or factors — are missing from the analysis?

District Bike Sharing Launches

The much-awaited D.C. bike sharing program SmartBike has launched with ten locations in Downtown and Midcity neighborhoods. The public can sign up at SmartBikeDC.com for a card enabling them to rent bikes for up to three hours from these stations between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The annual subscription costs $40.

According to the program press release, “Plans to further expand the program are currently under way. DDOT is planning to place additional stations in other neighborhoods in spherical paths working towards the outer parts of the city.” It occurs to me a logical place to expand the system would be at Metro stations, something they already seem to be doing with the downtown locations.

Zoning Out Guns

Just because the D.C. handgun ban has been overturned doesn’t mean you will ever be able to buy one in Washington. The reason? Zoning. This from the Wall Street Journal:

Washington has no federally licensed gun stores, so nowhere in the city can residents buy a handgun legally. Under federal law, buying one in neighboring Maryland or Virginia isn’t an option either. If gun dealers sell a firearm to a nonresident, they have to ship it to a licensed dealer in the purchaser’s home state, which then conducts the relevant background checks. “Without a dealer, there’s no place to ship the gun to,” said Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

It is unlikely that Washington will get any new dealers, either. Federal licensing requirements mandate that would-be dealers meet local guidelines and zoning ordinances. Representatives of each of the district’s eight council wards said they would vigorously oppose a gun shop in their area. They also said discussions had already begun over which regulations they might use to keep one from opening.

This approach has been used successfully elsewhere - as of 2005 Minneapolis only had one store, and Washington has already largely eradicated nude strip clubs through onerous zoning requirements:

While the license allows an owner to open a club with nude dancing anywhere in the city that has commercial zoning, a club must sit at least 600 feet away from any schools, community centers and housing. Community members can protest the opening of such a club, and it must get approval from the District’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

The only problem? As of now, D.C. Zoning Code says nothing about gun shops. Another issue to throw into the mix over in the D.C. zoning update …

We Need Congestion Pricing

Maybe it was during a 20-minute, 2-mile taxi ride from Georgetown to downtown D.C., where my average speed was 6 miles per hour. Or maybe it was during a lurching bus ride across K Street that took perhaps half an hour to traverse the same distance. During both trips, city street were jammed with large, single-occupancy vehicles, while buses, delivery trucks, and business vehicles were slowed to a crawl.

Washington, D.C. needs to get serious about downtown congestion. London congestion pricing has been a smashing success, with the Times reporting today on an unexpected benefit: drastically reduced parking costs downtown. Not the mention the significant revenue for public transportation investment. Now officials in Manchester are contemplating a two-ring system that would charge motorists £1-3 to enter the city, depending on the time of day and location. While business types are skeptical (as they usually are) the only evidence they can marshal are opinion polls. That takes us to Paris, a city that has cut auto use by 20 percent in seven years — without London-style congestion pricing. When parking spaces were converted to a dedicated bus route, the residents of the Left Bank neighborhood of Montparnasse held a funeral, predicting the death of the neighborhood. Now the owner of a famous cafe admits “We’ve come to love it,” noting the bus brings workers and customers with improved efficiency. Elsewhere in the city, programs initiated by mayor Bertrand Delanoë are raising the cost of parking, creating dedicated bus and bicycle lanes, making tens of thousands of bikes available for rent, and “civilizing” the city’s most car-friendly streets by cutting lanes and expanding pedestrian space.

D.C.’s attempts are meager in comparison. Increased parking meter prices are only in effect in several neighborhoods. The tiny and highly-hyped bike sharing program still hasn’t launched despite media reports it would start in May. The networking of bicycle lanes and trails is fragmented and far shorter than other U.S. cities. DDOT’s experimental bus and bicycle lane on 9th Street downtown is too short and poorly marked and enforced to make much of a difference.

The solutions to congestion are at hand, all that’s lacking is the resources and political will to do them.

D.C. Pedestrian Plan Released

Last week the Post had a big story on the District’s new pedestrian plan. The only problem, as DCist pointed out, was that the actual plan was not yet available online. This week the actual plan was posted to the project website. The website also includes detailed maps of their pedestrian crash analysis, the sidewalk gap analysis, and maps and recommendations for the plan’s priority corridors. The crash map is particularly interesting - this detail of the full map shows police-reported pedestrian crashes between 2000 and 2005, with blue icons indicating one accident to red indicating over 10. Although they seem dangerous, according to this map there were no reported accidents on either Dupont or Logan Circles, underscoring the difference between perceived and actual danger.

The Draft Pedestrian Master Plan found that 18% of D.C. blocks have incomplete or missing sidewalks on one or both sides of the street. It also included these statistics regarding accidents: An average of 670 pedestrians were injured each year from 2000 to 2006, and in 2004 pedestrian fatalities accounted for 22% of all traffic fatalities in the city.

Reviewing the report, the following recommendations caught my eye:

• Complete the sidewalk network
• Locate bus stops at the far side of intersections (after the bus crosses through the intersection) to improve safety
• Increase ticket fine for motorists who refuse to yield to a pedestrian (It’s $50 now in D.C., Arlington charges $500)
• Expand the photo radar speeding reduction program
• Develop walking information on DDOT and Washington.org tourist website
• Reduce the minimum driveway width for residential uses from 12-feet to 10-feet, and establish a 14-foot maximum width … For commercial uses, the District should reduce the minimum width for two-way traffic from 24-foot to 22-foot to reflect best practices. (Appendix C)
• Leading Pedestrian Intervals: “A large proportion of vehicle/pedestrian collisions at signalized intersections involve left- and right-turning vehicles. One phasing strategy to improve pedestrian safety in locations with heavy volumes of turning traffic and frequent pedestrian crossings is to provide an LPI. During the leading interval, all motor vehicle flows are stopped for 2-4 seconds while pedestrians are given the WALK signal.”
• Develop guidelines and standard details for utilizing advanced stop lines at all multi-lane uncontrolled crossings.
• Adopt policies that encouraging medians, minimum width of 6 ft (currently 4 ft)

The consultants preparing the report, Toole Design Group, will accept comments until June 20th before revising it to issue their final plan.

> W. Post: D.C. Pedestrian Safety Strategy to Target High-Crash Intersections
> District of Columbia Pedestrian Master Plan