After serving nearly a decade as Montgomery County planning director, Gwen Wright announced she’ll be retiring come January.

The Post reports that Vince Gray, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Darrell Issa are considering loosening the Height Act that keeps buildings in D.C. short and squat when the city is running out of land.

Rather than bringing a bottle of a nameless, never-tried bottle of Pinot Noir to your holiday parties, bring something the hosts will actually remember that it was you who brought it. Bring something that they’ll be thankful for the morning after two too many egg nogs or a night of putting up with the relatives in town for Hanukkah. Bring them Joe. Two pounds of coffee is the new bottle of wine. Don’t be an…

Written by DCist contributor Amy Cavanaugh With all the Smithsonian museums clustered around the mall, it’s easy to overlook the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, which has been chronicling the life of the area’s residents since 1967. Their new exhibit, East of the River: Continuity and Change, celebrates 500 years of southeast Washington in a sweeping overview of its triumphs and tragedies. From archaeological artifacts to paintings to documents to video, the multimedia components of East…

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. He’ll be on vacation for the next two weeks; this column will return on August 19th. It’s been a hard summer for many loved and local businesses, some of which have been a part of the city’s life for decades. This week, long lines trailed down New York Avenue as customers waited to get a last meal at A.V. Ristorante. In June,…

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. It isn’t particularly surprising, I suppose, that in Zachary Schrag’s Metro history The Great Society Subway the role of central city savior is played by, you know, Metro. What is somewhat surprising, even to an unapologetic transit supporter like me, is how convincing his case is; faced with riot scarred neighborhoods and a downtown abused by suburban office and retail growth, the…

As we mentioned earlier this week, sometimes we don’t envy Washington’s urban planners. Their challenges often encompass issues as varied and complicated as economic development, land use planning, sustainability, design and social justice. Add to that the design politics associated with the symbolism invested in the nation’s capital, and planning for D.C. becomes a unique urban problem to tackle. Not that it stops us from trying. Yesterday, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission…

What would D.C. look like if Congress took away the restrictions on building height? We’ve pondered this question before, and so have a lot of others. It’s one of the favorite parlor games of D.C.’s professional (and amateur) urban planners. The subject arose again in yesterday’s Post, when business columnist Dana Hedgpeth noted the recent comments of a land use expert questioning the wisdom and necessity of D.C.’s height limit. The expert cautioned that the…

Written by DCist contributor Christopher Durocher. Last month the brave city councilors of Manassas, Virginia refused to vote against gay massage therapist Howard Daniel’s application to operate a business from his home, despite protests by members of a local church. Instead, the Council refused to vote at all, leaving Daniel’s with no answer, but many questions about whether homophobia in his community had limited his business opportunities. As the Post reports: Daniel’s application hadn’t actually…

This morning, the Post reminds us that in cities, as in everything, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The paper covers a new study from the Center for Housing Policy today, which finds that the advantages of cheaper suburban housing are quickly offset by the expense of longer commutes. The report goes on to note that even so, there is no question of living near the central city for lower income residents;…