Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Sometimes I imagine that the vicious territoriality residents of this or that place occasionally display when comparing their home enclave to another is a sign of something positive, a rootedness and sense of belonging, maybe, to the neighborhood or city or state one calls home. If that’s the case, then residents of the cities of Baltimore and Washington must be some rooted... more ›

"Martin O'Malley signed the nation's first living wage law on Tuesday," read the Post this morning. Seems a little unfair, seeing as how the District passed its own living wage legislation back in January of 2006, a law which mandated that any firm receiving a District government contract in excess of $100,000 must pay its employees a minimum of $11.75 an hour. The Maryland law is similar; state contractors are required to pay workers $11.30 per hour in metropolitan areas such as Baltimore and D.C. and $8.50 per hour elsewhere. Governor O'Malley also happened to be a member of the Baltimore City Council back in 1994, when the city passed a landmark living wage law. more ›

>> Could an Evangelical group be forcing your kids to swap spit in school? We were just as shocked as some parents to learn that the answer may be "yes." Apparently, just such a program, aimed at teaching kids about STDs and peer pressure, has been in place at many Montgomery County schools for nine years. In the lesson one student is given a piece of gum to chew and then other kids are asked if they would chew the same piece. Some kids actually go for it and now parents and health organizations are up in arms. So here's our question, on a scale of eating paste to having your head dunked in the toilet, how un-hygienic is playing pass the Bubble Yum? [WTOP] more ›

The WaPo digs in to a report released by a group called Environment Maryland, part of a coalition of environmentalists, health professionals and religious leaders who want to require California-like emissions standards for all new motor vehicles by 2011. The report highlights EPA figures that show that Baltimore City, plus Montgomery, Baltimore and Prince George's counties, all have dangerously high levels of cancer-causing air pollutants. Despite protestations from entirely dispassionate Maryland automobile dealers that the... more ›

>> While we don't know anyone who's hit the new Posh supper club, if their VIP list is any indication, it's the new place to hobnob with B-list local celebs. We've just been waiting to get in good with "Northern Virginia moneymen Michael Saylor, Mark Ein and Joe Robert." Not! [Yeas and Nays] >> Our continuing search for a neighborhood that ISN'T a historic district is highlighted by an elderly couple's plight in newly-hot Mt.... more ›

We're at the midway point of the Fringe Festival, and we have all of one show opening today. That show is Erica McLaughlin's Love And Wood, from the Unmentionable Theatre Company. The play's heroine, Morgan, finds herself in a lover's triangle between two affectionate men, and struggles to reconcile the intellectual fullfillment she receives from one with the erotic fulfillment of the other. more ›

Despite the fact that the humidity is supposed to decrease this weekend, it's still going to be a hot one in D.C. And it's in this hot weather that we get hit with a bad case of nostalgia for our youth, which for this DCist was spent in Baltimore (okay, Baltimore County). One of the greatest joys for us in summer was cracking steamed crabs -- something you can find fairly easily in the general... more ›

We here at DCist apologize for our access problems over the past day or so, we were under the hood tinkering around and some unexpected problems popped up. We are now fully in operation. Thanks to some of our friends for passing the word along. more ›