The city has handed out 219 grants since 2012.

What does U Street have in common with Berkeley, California and the Milwaukee Riverwalk? It has a place on the American Planning Association’s Great Places in America list, which tallies up the 30 best neighborhoods, streets and public spaces in the U.S.

Yesterday was a bit of a downer for those expecting big things along H Street NE, but today is a brighter day: a majority of heavy construction on the H Street Great Streets project is now finished.

With the District getting closer and closer to again featuring streetcars as an operational part of the city’s transportation network, other areas slated to take part in the streetcar renaissance are getting anxious about what they’re supposed to do in the meantime to keep the momentum going.

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Joe Englert wants a parking garage. So it says in the Washington Business Journal, on page four of a six page testament to the change he’s helping spread along H Street NE, once one of the District’s proudest thoroughfares and now in the midst of a facelift. When he hasn’t been opening businesses there himself, it seems he’s been grooming and instructing…

D.C. has one, Chris Rock joked about them and there are entire books about them: streets named for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yesterday CNN posted an article about streets named for the civil rights leader, saying there are at least 777 in the country. The article says that Rock’s joke and the stereotype about King streets, that they’re poor and dangerous, may not be true. It quotes Matthew Mitchelson, a University of Georgia…

Good morning to all of you Washingtonians who, despite being forced to come in today, are honoring Dr. King today through peaceful resistance to actual work. Rather than confronting authority violently, you can make your dissatisfaction known through idleness and websurfing. We’ll be right here with you. Then, outside work, maybe do something a little more meaningful to celebrate MLK Day. Guilty of Wrongful Deeds: D.C. police may have ended a rash of brazen break-ins…

Today in Transit on Tuesday we have the Zipcar-hating Washington Times, the number of applicants for the newly-formed Riders Advisory Council, and the Great Streets workshops….

D.C. being the place that it is, big protests such as those that took place this last weekend are a dime a dozen. Complaints of excessive use of force by police officers are just as recurrent, with protestors often charging that overzealous police officers step in to make arrests too quickly and offer few apologies or admissions of wrongdoing thereafter. This weekend seems to have been different in that regard — WJLA is reporting that…

In 2002, this DCist moved to the far eastern reaches of Capitol Hill. At the time, 8th Street SE, which passes nearby the popular Eastern Market and in front of the Marine Barracks, was a worn down stretch of road, hardly a place you’d want to be caught at night. Three years and $8.5 million later, the roadway, at right, now known as the Barracks Row Main Street, boasts brick sidewalks, improved lighting, increased parking,…