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…

Update: The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for southern Prince William County, specifically around Woodbridge (where the IKEA is). This follows warnings in Spotsylvania County, Fredericksburg, and Stafford County, so that means it’s headed our direction. The storm is moving North at 60 m.p.h., so it may not be long before warnings are issued for our immediate area. We’ll keep you apprised. Be careful going outside today, folks: The National Weather Service…

Good morning, Washington. We imagine that by now you may have already heard about the fallout over 84 year-old Maryland Comptroller William Schaeffer’s inappropriate remarks to one of Governor Ehrlich’s female staffers. Schaeffer was initially unapologetic, but Ehrlich says that he later expressed regret — although it’s not clear whether he has yet apologized to the young woman in question. The Post covers the issue here; ABC 7 has video of the incident here. Spotsylvania…

For a region that often runs in terror at the mere sight of snow, Washington and its environs managed the weekend’s snow-dump with a relatively calm and mature demeanor. This DCist was shocked to awake yesterday to cleared roadways and open businesses, though power outages were reported in some areas and local airports struggled to get air traffic in and out. Today should proceed regularly — an unfortunate truth for those of us whose employers…

à ê î õ û Don’t get us wrong. DCist loves our vegetables. We love our vegetarian friends. We even went to an all-veggie dinner at the new hotness in Shaw, Vegetate, this last weekend. Sometimes, though, all you need is a huge slab of roasted meat. Brazil to the rescue! As usual. D.C. is nary a month away from the opening of Fogo de Chão, a “southern Brazilian-style” churrascaria (Portuguese for “meatatorium”) downtown. What…

More Water Woes: Perchlorate doesn’t sound like something you want in your drinking water. But the Post brings us an alert saying that the chemical “known to disrupt the thyroid gland and linked to hormonal dysfunction, developmental delays and infertility” has been found in groundwater near the Dalecarlia Reservoir in Upper Northwest. The Northwest Current newspaper has been all over the issue of World War I-era chemical armaments in the Spring Valley neighborhood and first…