A massive new condominium and retail development will break ground Friday in Columbia Heights, a community which is for many the poster child for gentrification in D.C. The City Paper shone a light on some of the more absurd and sobering events in the neighborhood this week with a cover story featuring excerpts from a public neighborhood listserv, where tensions between old and new residents crackle in terse emails. Among our favorites, not included in our first summary of the article was one subscriber’s post in 2002 in response to an article reporting that Target and Starbucks have reached an agreement that would put a Starbucks in all new Target stores: “Fabulous”. (Target is planning to construct a store in Columbia Heights.)

This week, Ward One Councilmember Jim Graham send an email to this list announcing the groundbreaking of the massive “Kenyon Square” building Graham boasted the project would contain “20% affordable units.” In response, one subscriber quipped, “Can’t wait for the groundbreaking…80% unaffordable housing = less crime.” The Kenyon Square building will contain 153 luxury condominiums ranging in price from $488,000 to $640,000. Beyond the humorous emails, the story seems a good deal more complicated than the total colonization of the neighborhood by upper and middle class professionals with college degrees.