If you want to live in the District's suburbs, your savings on housing costs are certain to be eaten up by significantly higher transportation costs -- so says a new report published today by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the D.C. Office of Planning. more ›

A Newsweek report shows that 7 of the 10 richest counties in the country are in the D.C. metro region. Newsweek used data from the 2009 Census to inform their rankings. The richest county in the country is Virginia's Loudoun County, with a median income of a staggering $114,204. Following are VA's Fairfax County (number 2), MD's Howard County (number 3), VA's Arlington County (number 5), MD's Montgomery County (number 6), MD's Calvert County (number 9), and MD's Charles County (number 10). Yeah, those suburbanites have a lot of money. more ›

For the most part, Forbes' latest billionaire list is a who's who of New York's hedge fund managers and the West Coast's tech giants, with a few oil barons and other old-money types sprinkled in for good measure. But the D.C. area is actually home to two of the 25 richest Americans, and six of the 10 richest counties. more ›

You may have read Eric Weiss's story in Sunday's Washington Post, which described the District's attempts to improve pedestrian safety and encourage walking and mass transit use as a "war against workers who drive into the city." There's not much more to say about it that David Alpert and Ryan Avent haven't already said. This sums it up nicely (from Avent):

Essentially, Eric Weiss went around the suburbs asking folks to bitch about the District’s efforts to make the District a better place for people who live and pay taxes in the District

I applaud your coverage of the regional transportation issues. Re-examining our choices in light of current resource presures and climate risks is increasingly important. However, as you report, please be careful not to "make the news" by framing issues from one side or the other? For example, the poll associated with this article asks "Do you agree with the city's plan to discourage people from driving into the District?" I suspect the response would be different if it read "Do you agree with the city's plan to improve air quality and pedestrian safety, and provide safe routes to school?"

Still in the office, D.C.? Yeah, us too. We hope you're only sticking around because you don't need to travel this holiday season. If so, enjoy the empty halls, bask in the quiet, and call it a day early. If not — well, good luck on the roads and at the airport. It sounds like they're going to be predictably nasty. There Seems To Be Some Sort of Holiday Occurring: And consequently you can... more ›

Good morning, Washington. The weather-related headlines today are all generally pretty disappointing -- The Post proclaims that "Rain Likely to Dampen Area But Not Douse the Drought", and others have followed suit. But waving like a lone reed in the pessimistic sands of weather prognostication is CapitalWeather.com, who just minutes ago put up a prediction, based on a brand new model, suggesting that "several factors are finally lining up to bring the potential for... more ›

>> D.C. United and Chivas Guadalajara renew their budding rivalry this evening. The match is part of the Copa Nissan Sudamericana, a 34-team invitational tournament featuring the best clubs of South America and several North American teams looking to crash the party. The match could be one of the most entertaining, competitive affairs this season. United aims to atone for their first round exit from the tournament two years ago; they also seek to... more ›

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. I don’t suppose it would surprise most District residents to hear that there are sharp differences in income between the city’s neighborhoods and racial and ethnic groups. We see it all around us, but especially in those parts of the city where the lives of the haves abut and intermingle with those of the have-nots. These gentrification frontiers are often a locus... more ›

[Updated]: So much music, so little time. While tomorrow's This Week In Jazz column will preview this year's fantastic Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, there is even more jazz to be had for those who can't wait that long. This Saturday, September 8, the 17th Annual Rosslyn Jazz Festival will take place at Gateway Park from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. On the same day, D.C.'s Maryland suburbs get their own jazz celebration in the form... more ›

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Things used to be clearer for Fairfax County. It used to be known as the epitome of upper-middle class suburbanity, even earning name-checks in popular novels and songs as such. With acres and acres of rolling hills covered in leafy suburbs and landscaped office parks, it was a quiet complement to the quirky inner suburbs of Northern Virginia and the dense chaos... more ›

What a perfectly simple city scene, probably a variation on every backyard in town and made a little classic with the red-on-red tones. Of course, the almost invisible lock securing the grill to the patio and the iron gate on the tiny window reminds you that this ain't the suburbs. Flickr user christaki could have this put on a cover story of City Grillin': How to Feed As Many People As You Can Squeeze... more ›

A group of friends gathered last Friday night at a rain soaked campground just outside the village of Cooperstown, NY for a weekend that had been in the works for over a decade. All of us, just north of 30 and pals since high school, grew up in D.C.’s Maryland suburbs and were in town to celebrate the induction of Cal Ripken, Jr. into baseball’s Hall of Fame. The event was so much more than... more ›

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a... more ›

Good morning, Washington. We've just been catching up on the rather scary looking but thankfully not terror-related explosion in Manhattan yesterday. Naturally, our parent site Gothamist has complete coverage of the steam explosion that occurred on East 41st and Lexington Avenue (41st between Lex and Third) just before 6 p.m. yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the explosion, which killed one person and injured 30, had New Yorkers worried for a while, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said... more ›

Via Atrios, this little geographically motivated blog spat between Ben Adler at TAPPED and Brian Beutler, about whether New York or California has a better environmental record, misses the more important point: This study shows that it's Washington, DC that actually has the lowest per capita gasoline consumption of any place in the country, by an impressively wide margin. We've certainly explored issues related to the relative greenness of densely populated urban environments, compared... more ›

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic... more ›

The Post brings news today of a new study study by the Corporation for National and Community Service -- the federal agency that administers volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps -- that gives a first meaningful look at volunteering rates in U.S. cities since the Census Bureau began gathering this sort of data in 2002. Overall, the Washington metro area ranked 15th in the nation for volunteering and community service work, though that figure doesn't tell... more ›

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 ›

Written by DCist contributor Kelly Rand With Leonardo DiCaprio riding around in a hybrid car and Al Gore winning an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, “green” seems to be all the rage these days. But glass artist Erwin Timmers was “green” before “green” was cool. Co-founder and director of the Washington Glass School and Studio, Timmers experiments with firing techniques to incorporate discarded tempered glass into his art, giving it new life and diverting it... more ›

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. I'll admit, it isn’t easy for me to talk about crime in the District with many of my friends, particularly those who live in the suburbs or outside the metro area entirely. In the minds of those who don’t often visit, Washington is still the murder capital of the United States, still caught in crack wars, still a place into which one... more ›

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. I got a kick out of New York’s reaction to a report released back in April, showing that carbon emissions in the city had increased by about 8 percent since 1997. The news stories were alarmist and the leaders angry, promising to do whatever it took to reverse the trend and reduce emissions within 25 years. Admirable sentiments, but it made me... more ›

The past week or so has been tough for all you car commuters out there, huh? For each of the past 10 days, the average price of gas in the U.S. has reached yet another record high. The price for a gallon of regular is currently at $3.21 and rising, which exceeds the 1981 record of $1.35, or $3.15 in current dollars. Experts don't expect prices to go down any time soon, if ever. The... more ›

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. The news came as absolutely no surprise to most observers of the city of Washington, but it still managed to produce banner headlines and an outbreak of hand wringing. Which, I suppose, should also have been no surprise, in a city where issues of race and income lade every public policy discussion. Earlier this week, the Census Bureau released new data on... more ›

From the front page of this morning's Washington Post, it seems the last person anyone expected to be right about anything, perennial whack-a-doo mayoral candidate Faith, wasn't actually that far off the mark during last year's campaign: Chocolate City is rapidly becoming Vanilla Villa. The District of Columbia will likely no longer be majority-African American within the next 13 years. The 14 percent increase in non-Hispanic white District residents and 6 percent decrease in blacks... more ›

A new survey conducted by AutoVantage, a Connecticut-based automobile membership club, and Prince Market Research reveals which U.S. cities have the worst cases of road rage -- and D.C. came in at number five, behind only Los Angeles (#4), Boston (#3), New York (#2) and Miami (#1). From CNN.com: The most frequent cause of road rage cited in the survey was impatient motorists. Drivers also said road rage can stem from poor driving in fast... more ›

This morning DCist Ryan found a story in the New York Times about the lack of public restrooms in Gotham City. DCist Michael said he'd recently observed a tourist relieving himself in Washington Circle, and theorized that this might also be a problem in our nation's capital. I then asked if I could come forward and tell a story I had never told anyone. Way back in the twentieth century, as a high school kid... more ›

Good Monday morning, D.C. Since we get up early to skim the day's headlines, we couldn't help but notice that today was one of the first days since we switched to Daylight Saving Time that the sun was up before we were. Not to mention that it's already staying light until 7 p.m. We love this time of year, when suddenly, as things get steadily warmer, we're filled with a desire to get outside and... more ›

>> In wake of yesterday's tragedy, Virginia Tech has canceled most of its spring sports events. [ABC 7] >> Two Secret Service officers have been injured in an accidental shooting outside the White House, inside the southwest gate security booth. Secret Service spokeswoman Kim Bruce said one officer was injured in the leg and the other received a shrapnel wound in his face. It's not clear how the accidental shooting took place. The Secret Service... more ›

Police have now confirmed that the man responsible for yesterday's horrific murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech is Cho Seung-Hui, 23, who grew up in Centreville, Va. Cho, a citizen of South Korea, graduated from Westfield High School in Fairfax County in 2003. As well, several of the students killed were from Northern Virginia suburbs, including Mary Read, 19, Reema Samaha, 18, Erin Peterson, 18, Leslie Sherman, 20, and Emily Hilscher,19. The Post has... more ›

It was two years ago that we first took notice of D.C.'s new population of coyotes. Back then we worried about the threat of an international incident as the animals made their way to Embassy Row. Today the Post confirms that coyotes continue to roam the edges of Rock Creek Park, bringing them in much closer contact to city residents. This is one case of animal/human cohabitation that can't be blamed on urban development pushing... more ›