Photo by Kevin H. Your weekend editor is writing from Austin, Texas, where Capital Metro just launched its brand new MetroRail Red Line, the first line in the MetroRail light train system. Talking with friends who have lived here for years about their impressions of the rail system has been illuminating. Having lived with the Metro system for nearly 35 years, the District has some useful advice to offer a city like Austin: The…

My favorite blogger economist scoffs at his fellow Brookland residents who doubt the small area plan and comes up with a genius way to capitalize on their misconceptions: “[I]s there a market for NIMBY insurance? That is, I’d love to collect tiny premiums from residents looking at potential development near their homes, in exchange for which I’d take responsibility for the change in value of their home relative to homes outside of the directly affected…

Economic blogger for The Economist and former DCist editor Ryan Avent discusses proposed Purple Line development. It was back during the administration of Parris Glendening that a heavy rail option (that is, Metrorail style) for the Purple Line was first ruled out. In those days, oil was just $20 per barrel and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties were home to almost 150,000 fewer people than live in those places today. The District was still…

A rainy Friday night was enlivened by the return of hometown heroine (and Richard Montgomery High alumni — Go, uhm…Rockets! Right? Y’all are the Rockets?) Tori Amos, who took to the DAR Constitution Hall armed with her giant black Bösendorfer piano, her touring band, and a new record. That record, American Doll Posse, is an odd sort of concept album revolving around a bunch of different characters that Amos invented, costumed, and, I believe, even…

Former editor-in-chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Here’s an interesting question to consider: is the District of Columbia becoming less diverse? With whites once again moving into the city, the question of the sustainability of the District’s multicultural heritage has been raised, but what do recent demographic shifts actually suggest about the future of a diverse D.C.? Over the past decade, the city as a whole has become less…

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Brookland recently got the news that Dwellings, a home furnishings store and one of our most promising main street retailers, was closing due to slow growth in sales. The announcement touched off a neighborhood discussion on what was wrong, exactly, with the shopping environment in the leafy, residential neighborhood. Many locals noted that low residential density made running a retail business a…

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. The Washington Highlands neighborhood of the District of Columbia is terra incognita for many Washingtonians. Tucked up against the District’s southeastern border with Maryland’s Prince George’s County, the area is walled off from the rest of the city by Oxon Run Park, the Anacostia Freeway, Bolling Air Force Base, and the Anacostia River, not to mention the yawning gap between its economic…

As if we needed another study to tell us D.C. area traffic is awful and getting worse — a report released yesterday has pushed us into a solid three-way tie for second place in the contest for the Worst Traffic in the Nation award. So congrats, D.C. You are tied with drivers in Atlanta and the Bay Area as you burn time inching along I-395 in your car. Only Los Angeles can boast more…

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. It was good that the lunch keynote didn’t last any longer; I was ready to hand Jim Abdo a check. Those of us on the academic side of the development industry aren’t used to such raw displays of enthusiasm. After following Abdo through his slide presentation on the history of his business and the mammoth project he’s begun on New York Avenue…

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…