Elements of Urbanism: Washington, DC

[stjr]

I have much family in the DC area and my mother was born in the City, pre-WWII.  She likes to tell of when the front lawn of the White House was an unfenced, public park!  Now, DC gov't buildings are patrolled by guards with machine guns!

The Metro is great but it has become a victim of its own success.  If you want to park and ride, most suburban stations are sold out by 7AM or so.  That leaves drop offs only.  Some stations in Maryland and Virginia have high rise cities now built over them.  Since there are no limits in height in most of these areas, it's not unusual to find some pretty tall skyscrapers in suburban cities like Bethesda (it actually has its own "downtown").

Another oddity of DC is that neither I-95 or any other interstate goes go through the City's core.  You must take the suburban Beltway to through-transit the area.  The Beltway is a traffic engineer's nightmare - mostly a 10 lane racetrack where, at places, lanes disappear on the right and reappear on the left forcing lane changes for ALL through traffic (like at the I-270 interchange in Md.).  It's so overcrowded most of the day, it's often a parking lot.  Locals work hard to avoid major pieces on it.  I once spent 2 hours on a summer SATURDAY morning trying to exit the Beltway to I-95 South in Virginia.  Found out I was trapped in the Virginia Beach exodus by the locals.  It took 4 hours to get through it all at Richmond.

Another unique facet of the DC area is that it has a majority upper middle class due to the giant numbers of government employees and government-dependent professionals (lots of lawyers, lobbyists, trade associations, think tanks, consultants, non-profits, defense and other contractors, media, etc.).  The super wealthy (successful corporate types and entrepreneurs) and low income are marginal in numbers compared to like-sized major metro areas.  This creates a more stable and balanced economy and community which is also highly educated and engaged unlike most anywhere else.  After all, DC is to politics what Broadway is to theater or Hollywood to movies.

For everyday excitement, DC rivals NYC for America's most vibrant community IMHO.

[AaroniusLives]

As a resident of DC for the past four years (the shot of M Street in Georgetown nearly reveals my house, MetroJax,) and an avid amateur New Urbanist, perhaps the greatest lesson of DC for both Jacksonville and for the country at large is that skyscrapers do not necessarily equal urbanism. In fact, part of the reason that DC is such a beautiful city involves that height restriction. The streets are typically full of people, light, trees and life, all without having to become a high-rise canyon. If downtown Jacksonville never built another skyscraper, but filled in their downtown with 3-8 story buildings like DC, it might not make the top of the list at skyscrapercity.info, but it will be a charming, wonderful place to live, work and visit.

The high-density/low-height feeling of DC has truly had an effect on me; everytime I train up to NYC, I'm reminded of just how grand, imposing and unattractive that city is. One large park surrounded by blocks of buildings blotting out the sun does not a beautiful city make.

[stjr]

^^ Well said, Aaron.  Big isn't necessarily better, whether its going up with high rises or out with urban sprawl.  Quality, not quantity.  Jax has yet to learn that lesson.

[cellmaker]

I grew up in Orange Park but live in Logan Circle, DC, which is near both the mentioned Dupont Circle and U Street Corridor neighborhoods. 

Rather than looking at downtown DC as a model for urban living, look to the the neighborhoods that fan out from it.  Capitol Hill, Dupont, Logan, U Street, Adams-Morgan, Georgetown.  What you find in each is a blend of medium- and high-density (but not tall) housing mixed (very important) with retail and commercial concerns.  Buildings and homes are on or very near the usually broad sidewalks, and cars and trees line the street.  Blocks are relatively short.  Stores (including grocery stores) are on the street, not surrounded by giant parking lots.  The result is that you can walk out of your house and actually be at a store, restaurant, cafe, dog-care, dentist, bar, or school in minutes.  Walking in these neighborhoods is always pleasant and never boring.

In these neighborhoods there are fewer and fewer parking lots that actually abut streets, which provides fewer and fewer "dead spaces" along the urbanscape.  This doesn't mean there aren't places to park or that there aren't a lot of cars.  Cars are everywhere, but they are not the dominant aspect of transportation; they share space with people.  (Oddly, the few places where DC has tried making pedestrian streets with no cars the result has been dead zones.)  Look at DC in the aerial view of Google Maps and compare it to Jacksonville. 

Another great aspect of DC's neighborhoods is that there are alleys everywhere.  This gives a lot of residents a place to park behind their houses or apartments and a place to keep garbage cans, etc.  But the most important aspect is that it limits garages and curb cuts on the streets themselves, which means the streetscape is basically unbroken.  Compare this with alley-less San Francisco, which has garage doors every 20 feet, creating a parking nightmare.

Jax should concentrate on filling in and making Riverside/Five Points, San Marco, and Springfield high-density, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods, and provide strong public transportation links to downtown and between those neighborhoods. 

[thelakelander]

Welcome to Metro Jacksonville, cellmaker......great points!

[ProjectMaximus]

Jax should concentrate on filling in and making Riverside/Five Points, San Marco, and Springfield high-density, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods, and provide strong public transportation links to downtown and between those neighborhoods. 

Amen!

[JaxAvondale]

I'm in DC for a business trip. I walked around Georgetown today for the first time today. What a nice neighborhood!

[peestandingup]

I'm in DC for a business trip. I walked around Georgetown today for the first time today. What a nice neighborhood!

Its nice, but GT is overrated IMHO. Crowded, touristy & no Metro stop.

Head to Eastern Market. Way more chill, but still nice & has more of a "real DC" vibe to it. Shaw & U Street as well (<but gets crazy on weekends).

[spuwho]

I'm in DC for a business trip. I walked around Georgetown today for the first time today. What a nice neighborhood!

Too funny, I am over on 14th NW now just north of Logan Circle. TheCat is in town too.

This neighborhood is pretty cool, lots of original funky stores. Im having dinner at Ted's Bulletin.

[JaxAvondale]

I'm in DC for a business trip. I walked around Georgetown today for the first time today. What a nice neighborhood!

Too funny, I am over on 14th NW now just north of Logan Circle. TheCat is in town too.

This neighborhood is pretty cool, lots of original funky stores. Im having dinner at Ted's Bulletin.

Ah! I wish I would had saw this earlier. I'm on 22nd NW and not too far from Ted's.

[finehoe]

If you haven't visited Washington DC in the last ten years or so, you owe it to yourself to go.  Even since this article originally appeared on MJ, the place has changed immensely.  Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill remain great neighborhoods, but whole new swaths of the city have redeveloped and are filled with life.  Fourteenth Street, NW has become a restaurant mecca with new and trendy places opening almost monthly, with new condo developments lining the side streets.  Shaw, a former less-than-desirable 'hood has been gentrified and also contains tons of new trendy bars and restaurants.  The U Street entertainment district now stretches to Georgia Ave.  Capital Riverfront, a built-from-scratch 'hood around the baseball stadium is booming.  The former SW urban renewal area is undergoing a complete transformation.  8th St. SE is also a restaurant row, including Rose's Luxury, recently named 'Best in the Nation'.  H St, NE (home of the new streetcar line) is lined with trendy bars and restaurants.  Neighborhoods that just a few years ago no one had heard of (Bloomingdale, Deanwood, Petworth, Brookland) are full of young people opening craft breweries, distillerys, and coffeehouses.  Downtown has seen an influx of new residents and high-end retailing.  The place has finally become the world capital the country deserves.

[thelakelander]

I'm currently considering heading to DC for the grand opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture this fall. Seems like it has taken forever to get that thing built.


My friend from high school rented a 3rd floor flat in the gray building on 12th St NW. The neighborhood was kind of rough (and affordable) back in those days.

I used to visit DC quite often in the mid-1990s. I had a good friend from high school who went to college in DC. She lived on 12th St NW between U and T Streets. Coming from Central Florida, that was basically my introduction to walkable big city life. Back in those days, the Green Line ended at U Street/Cardozo.  We used to step over homeless people on U and half of the buildings were vacant and appeared to be prime "blight removal ready" if located in Jax. At the time, there was talk about revitalizing Columbia Heights. Today, I can't even recognize these places. It's been one of the quickest economic/gentrification turnarounds I've ever witnessed. Even Anacostia has dramatically changed.


Columbia Heights in 2014

[JaxAvondale]

I want to attend the opening of that museum as well. I thought it was going to open in August in time for my September trip back out to DC but it appears that the opening isn't until 9/24 now.

[finehoe]

Washington D.C. Is the Restaurant City of the Year

...there's an energy and excitement surrounding all the new places that is palpable. D.C. is bubbling with momentum. You go in to one place, and you hear about another exciting spot just down the street. The table next to you isn't only talking politics; they're discussing last night's cacio e pepe, too. Chefs like Andrés, Fabio Trabocchi, Cathal Armstrong, Peter Pastan, Jamie Leeds, Eric Ziebold, and others laid the foundation for this movement and are still doing bang-up jobs at their many restaurants. Now, they're joined by the likes of Johnny Monis (Komi and Little Serow), Aaron Silverman (Rose's Luxury, our no. 1 Best New Restaurant of 2014, and Pineapple and Pearls), and a bunch more folks whose names you might not recognize now, but you will soon.

http://www.bonappetit.com/story/washington-dc-restaurant-city-of-the-year