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…

Colossal Meltdown for GW Any time you blow a 20 point second half lead, it makes for a particularly ugly loss. GW’s 74-65 loss to USC in the John Wooden Classic on Saturday qualifies as such. This one was just plain nasty. Two minutes into the second half, GW held a commanding 36-16 lead against their counterparts from USC. Up until that point, the Colonials had played sparkling defense, protecting the basket while forcing the…

As its name suggests, Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland’s western Montgomery County is not much larger than a loaf of sugar. Even the condemned Sisyphus wouldn’t have minded rolling his boulder up Sugarloaf’s measly 1,282 feet over and over again. But the hill’s easy hikes are no longer the only draw that brings people out to the vicinity of Comus, Md. These days, a recently renovated restaurant and a new winery are attracting city dwellers to…

Written by DCist contributor Alex Hogan and Martin Austermuhle D.C. Mayor, City Council: Ok, so the September Democratic primary kinda took the air out of the District’s official mayoral election, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go vote. Look for a crushing Democratic sweep, but give a little time and check out what the Statehood Green and Republican candidates, Chris Otten and David Kranich, respectively, have to offer. We’d like to think that someday their…

Good morning, Washington. We know that the news hasn’t been particularly uplifting since the crime emergency began. And, to be honest, today’s stories don’t really represent a change from that precedent. But we have good news! That’s right: Geraldo is coming to town to save us all. Now admittedly, this DCist’s Powerbook wasn’t able to coax any sound out of Fox 5’s new, impossibly Flash-heavy website, so it’s difficult to know the exact planks of…

In recent years, Virginia has aggressively billed itself as an East Coast alternative to the wine country destinations of California and the Pacific Northwest. And unsurprisingly, Virginia wineries have sprung up like magazine articles apologizing for Kanye West’s self-confidence. But with very few exceptions, the wines coming out of the Old Dominion generally either cost far more than they should (Chrysalis Vineyards’ passable viognier runs a hefty $29 per bottle, while Alban Vineyards’ excellent Central…

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…

A Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates has promised to find ways to force a vote on legislation he authored making English Maryland’s official state language, reports the W. Times. Del. Pat McDonough of Baltimore County said yesterday that if his legislation fails to make it out of the House Health and Government Operations Committee — it currently has only nine of 13 votes needed for passage — he will find ways to…