anyone else dislike Greater Greater Washington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Although writers and commentators on GGW pretend to value concepts like inclusion, equity and diversity, there is a pernicious, persistent prejudice that appears quite often on the GGW website: blatant ageism. It's revolting.

Sorry, I have grey hair, and I do not see the ageism.

Ageism and ablism. Assuming everyone can ride a bike or walk 2 miles to the metro or wait 30 minutes in the cold or heat for a bus.

[Anonymous]

There have been many posts on GGW about accessibility. They are not only about bikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Although writers and commentators on GGW pretend to value concepts like inclusion, equity and diversity, there is a pernicious, persistent prejudice that appears quite often on the GGW website: blatant ageism. It's revolting.

Sorry, I have grey hair, and I do not see the ageism.

Ageism and ablism. Assuming everyone can ride a bike or walk 2 miles to the metro or wait 30 minutes in the cold or heat for a bus.

They do not assume that. Making it easier for more people to bike or walk does not mean no one can drive (though there is plenty of ableism in expecting everyone to be able to drive). And they are generall for frequent bus service, and better bus stops/shelters. In fact it was their adversaries in Arlington who launched a war on "fancy bus stops" on Columbia Pike.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"This isn't the free-market 'build more housing and supply and demand will take care of housing affordability' idea (which I for the record don't think would actually fix the problem). "

Even David Alpert doesn't believe the smart growth kool-aid that more and more private development in DC will fix housing affordability.

One more time. DA has consistently said he thinks BOTH more private development AND more committed AH are needed to fix housing affordablity. As has the Coalition for Smarter Growth. In fact CSG's housing lead posted two articles to GGW a while back -"why the right is wrong on AH" (because they don't see the need for committed AH" and "why the left is wrong on AH" (becaues they don't see the need for market rate supply). You should probably read them.

Can you point me to any posts on GGW that advocate for direct creation of affordable housing (or protection of it)? Thanks.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ggwash+IZ&client=firefox-b-1&ei=B7YFW_vAIInwzgK0ioqADg&start=10&sa=N&biw=1333&bih=698

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&biw=1333&bih=698&ei=I7YFW7F-kNjPAuDxl4AO&q=ggwash+%22affordable+housing%22&oq=ggwash+%22affordable+housing%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3...37262.42358.0.43546.26.24.2.0.0.0.96.1674.24.24.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.18.1290...0j33i160k1j0i10i30k1j33i21k1.0.jDw3-Zq9-cA

[Anonymous]

Try this pair

Why the left is wrong (arguing FOR market rate development)

https://ggwash.org/view/37070/why-the-left-is-wrong-about-affordable-housing



And
Why the right is wrong (arguing for direct investment in AH)
https://ggwash.org/view/37292/why-the-right-is-wrong-about-affordable-housing

Note the latter piece acknowledges filtering, but doubt that there is a sufficient supply of older buildings in our region for filtering to accommodate all lower income people (plus it raises the question of how the market deals with inevitable renovations of older buildings)

[Anonymous]

How in the world is someone making this about ageism?

It is because typically the anti-development folks are older and have lived their lives a particular way and think it is the only way they can live their lives and hence it is how others should live their lives and from that they make huge inferences that this is all about them and is against them.

Which is to say everyone needs to live in a single family home and drive everywhere all the time. And they assume that means that people who make other choices and advocate for other choices are anti-old, anti people with families, anti people who need to get groceries anti people who can't/won't wait at a bus shelter in the cold etc.

But what everyone actually needs is a diversity of choices - in housing, in transportation and in myriad versions of land use - and I mean that in both the individual sense and the societal sense.

We need single family homes. We need row-houses. We need small condos. We need large condos. We need small apartments. We need large apartments. We need housing for young singles. We need housing for families. We need housing for able bodied older people. We need housing for less able bodied older people. We need market rate housing. We need workforce housing. We need subsidized housing and in all 3 categories we need to do whatever we can to keep up with the demand.

We need a transportation system that functions and is affordable for everyone. This means a roadway system that can efficiently deliver goods and move people around on it in a way that is efficient and acknowledges that inside the Beltway by and large that roadway system has very little if any room to expand. Which means we have to figure out how to move more people in the same amount of space - so that means more public transportation, more walking, more biking, more car sharing. It doesn't mean that no one can drive alone but it requires an acknowledgement that when you have limited space to work with you need to use that space efficiently to get the most out of it and that the least efficient way to move people in that context is in a single occupancy vehicle and it also requires an acknowledgement that using scarce space for car storage rather than moving people probably doesn't make sense and that in some manner that inefficiency should be priced into the system and inefficient users should pay more to use that space.

It means thinking over how to use all space.

Space near transit - both publicly and privately owned. Park space that might be better utilized if say lightly used tennis courts are replaced by more intensely used swimming pools or dog parks and yes it might mean little used green space also gets replaced with something more needed. Parking space - whether on roadways or surface parking lots that have potentially dozens of other more productive uses like being converted to sidewalks that many more people can benefit from. Or if excessive curb cuts that benefit drivers should be closed to create more space for pedestrians and reduce opportunities for conflict.

But the crowd who seems to be outraged about change and is angry at the so called GGW crowd struggles to see the layers of things that are going on around them (and always have been BTW) and come on here and feign outrage that people (advocates, citizens, city planners, politicians) are thinking through better ways to do things that serve more diverse populations in different ways all of which is necessary in a warming world that is growing more crowded.

GGW delves into all of these issues and has lots of discussions about how to better manage in demand resources in our region.

Now if you are older and perceive this all as an attack of the way you've lived your entire life well you are welcome to make that inference but it is really not at all what the discussion is about.

And if you are older I'll also remind you that you are far more likely to lose the ability to drive before you lose the ability to walk so the transit and pedestrian safety improvements you roll your eyes about now you could be relying on soon and the new condo building in your neighborhood could be a future home and one that is more affordable because we've made policy decisions to allow supply to better keep up with demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How in the world is someone making this about ageism?

It is because typically the anti-development folks are older and have lived their lives a particular way and think it is the only way they can live their lives and hence it is how others should live their lives and from that they make huge inferences that this is all about them and is against them.

Which is to say everyone needs to live in a single family home and drive everywhere all the time. And they assume that means that people who make other choices and advocate for other choices are anti-old, anti people with families, anti people who need to get groceries anti people who can't/won't wait at a bus shelter in the cold etc.

But what everyone actually needs is a diversity of choices - in housing, in transportation and in myriad versions of land use - and I mean that in both the individual sense and the societal sense.

We need single family homes. We need row-houses. We need small condos. We need large condos. We need small apartments. We need large apartments. We need housing for young singles. We need housing for families. We need housing for able bodied older people. We need housing for less able bodied older people. We need market rate housing. We need workforce housing. We need subsidized housing and in all 3 categories we need to do whatever we can to keep up with the demand.

We need a transportation system that functions and is affordable for everyone. This means a roadway system that can efficiently deliver goods and move people around on it in a way that is efficient and acknowledges that inside the Beltway by and large that roadway system has very little if any room to expand. Which means we have to figure out how to move more people in the same amount of space - so that means more public transportation, more walking, more biking, more car sharing. It doesn't mean that no one can drive alone but it requires an acknowledgement that when you have limited space to work with you need to use that space efficiently to get the most out of it and that the least efficient way to move people in that context is in a single occupancy vehicle and it also requires an acknowledgement that using scarce space for car storage rather than moving people probably doesn't make sense and that in some manner that inefficiency should be priced into the system and inefficient users should pay more to use that space.

It means thinking over how to use all space.

Space near transit - both publicly and privately owned. Park space that might be better utilized if say lightly used tennis courts are replaced by more intensely used swimming pools or dog parks and yes it might mean little used green space also gets replaced with something more needed. Parking space - whether on roadways or surface parking lots that have potentially dozens of other more productive uses like being converted to sidewalks that many more people can benefit from. Or if excessive curb cuts that benefit drivers should be closed to create more space for pedestrians and reduce opportunities for conflict.

But the crowd who seems to be outraged about change and is angry at the so called GGW crowd struggles to see the layers of things that are going on around them (and always have been BTW) and come on here and feign outrage that people (advocates, citizens, city planners, politicians) are thinking through better ways to do things that serve more diverse populations in different ways all of which is necessary in a warming world that is growing more crowded.

GGW delves into all of these issues and has lots of discussions about how to better manage in demand resources in our region.

Now if you are older and perceive this all as an attack of the way you've lived your entire life well you are welcome to make that inference but it is really not at all what the discussion is about.

And if you are older I'll also remind you that you are far more likely to lose the ability to drive before you lose the ability to walk so the transit and pedestrian safety improvements you roll your eyes about now you could be relying on soon and the new condo building in your neighborhood could be a future home and one that is more affordable because we've made policy decisions to allow supply to better keep up with demand.

Because older people become disabled, duh. You may be right about better transit being good for older disabled people, but the annoying thing about GGW is that they just assume that their gee-whiz urbanist ideas will be magically better for everyone, instead of actually looking into that specific issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try this pair

Why the left is wrong (arguing FOR market rate development)

https://ggwash.org/view/37070/why-the-left-is-wrong-about-affordable-housing



And
Why the right is wrong (arguing for direct investment in AH)
https://ggwash.org/view/37292/why-the-right-is-wrong-about-affordable-housing

Note the latter piece acknowledges filtering, but doubt that there is a sufficient supply of older buildings in our region for filtering to accommodate all lower income people (plus it raises the question of how the market deals with inevitable renovations of older buildings)

Straw man. I don't think anyone on the left argues against building more housing. They argue that depending greatly on "filtering" and making huge concessions to developers on that ground, is not likely to solve the problem.

[Anonymous]

Or if excessive curb cuts that benefit drivers should be closed to create more space for pedestrians and reduce opportunities for conflict.

Unless, of course, an important developer wants to add new curb cuts, even if it adds to pedestrian/truck/car/bike conflicts. Then DC's Office of Planning and DDOT bend over backwards. Witness the Roadside/Wegmans development at the Fannie Mae site. The developer wanted to move the truck access as far to the periphery of its site as it could (so that truck noise won't affect the new residents in the condos the developer will sell). This means that the truck access ramp is literally in the backyard of McLean Gardens residents along Rodman Street. Significantly, it also means introducing a new intersection and conflict point on Wisconsin that is less than 50 yards from one existing traffic signal and 100 yards from another signal, in a very heavily congested area already. DC would never do this normally, but if the developer makes friends in high places, then....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They're all "gee whiz!!" about "transit" without being actually willing to address the issues that face people trying to drop off kids, get to work, and get home again at a decent hour.

I have kids who do tons of stuff and much of that stuff relies on the mechanics of a city & region that GGW discusses at length.

We live close in in a walkable neighborhood so my kids are able to walk to school and many of their activities and because we are close in we have short commutes. My biggest quality of life issues come from traffic and dangerous and aggressive driving from the folks who made different choices but expect the rest of us to accommodate them.

GGW often discusses how to make those lifestyle choices easier and available to more people so I have no idea how the blog doesn't address the issues that you claim it overlooks - as a DC resident it very much matters to our family what sort of transit and biking and walking options we have available to us in DC as we rely on those things every day.

If you want to start a blog about sitting in traffic and cul-de-sac architecture and suburban road design feel free to.

On DCUM urbanites and suburbanites (though why all the suburbanites are on here always eludes me) squabble endlessly about their lifestyle choices.

Well thanks for showing your cards. You made the "choice" to live in a walkable neighborhood where those nasty cars are your biggest problem; the people who have to drive to get to work from the suburbs have made "different choices."

Let them eat cake, in other words?

Nope - let them deal with the consequences of their choices and follow the rules along the way. Lot of the folks cutting through my neighborhood can afford to live in it they just choose not to. Which is fine but I shouldn't have have a stream of cars speeding down my street because they need to make up time.

So you know the incomes and family situations of everyone who commutes through your neighborhood? I don't think so. I mean, I live on the Hill and dislike the cut-through traffic too, but I'm hardly so dense as to think that the people driving in from Landover could have just bought a $900,000 rowhouse instead. One could equally say you're living with the consequences of choosing to live in an urban neighborhood.

Another Hill resident-- and I second this point.

[Anonymous]

I've heard the head of GGW speak. He has a raging Napoleon complex.

[Anonymous]

I broke my leg trying to walk on my street without city sidewalks (build of which was multiply times rejected from city). It has disabled me horribly in spite of 3 surgeries, and has totally changed my life.

Money needs to go into sidewalks, crosswalks, well designed multi intersections with lights just for pedestrians to not get hit. It's can't be all about bikes lanes. Had the city put in the requested fix over the years, I wouldn't be hobbled like i am.

[Anonymous]

If you want your kids to fall behind, be sure to follow GGW advice about schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want your kids to fall behind, be sure to follow GGW advice about schools.

Their stuff on schools was so poorly received -- even by the sycophants in their echo-chamber comment section -- that they've basically stopped writing about education. If I recall, they were pushing for a citywide lottery.

[Anonymous]

NP here, I’m 62 staring down not being able to drive or park near enough to my destination with some age-related disability, so I really want transit to get more market share so it gets better and more available. If they support transit, I’m for it!