Greater Greater Washington as a news source

[Anonymous]

But as the city has attracted more wealth,

As it has attacted more high paying jobs.

Keep the high paying jobs and don't build more housing (and NYC has not built nearly enough) and prices spike even more.

Now maybe more high paying jobs should go to other places.

If you have a good strategy for doing that, write it up - I am sure GGWash would be interested.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:GGW is very much a pro-developer website. They push anything that supports greater urbanization and density, which aligns nicely with the real estate industry's goals.

Being YIMBY is not being pro-developer. But yeah, "developer" is not a dirty word if you're interested in increasing affordable housing and livable cities.

Developers don't care about affordable housing.

Well limiting the supply of housing surely isn't going to make it more affordable, or make cities more livable. (Unless your goal is to keep your neighborhood from changing at all, in which case, you're not really pro affordable housing either, most likely.)

Have you been to New York City? They've packed as many people in as humanly possible, and it is neither affordable nor livable.

I find NYC very livable. And limiting housing construction would not increase affordability, obviously. (PS: nobody every said that increasing density is all that's needed, but the converse -- being paranoidly anti-developer -- is only going to hurt, not help.)

You obviously don't have kids.

I have relatives raising kids in Brooklyn. Not sure how you can argue against 2 subway stops within 5 minutes, grocery store down the block, public school on the same block, Prospect Park 10 minutes away, Brooklyn library, etc etc etc ...

Ha. Famous last words. Just try it. I love NYC but the idea of raising kids in a little apartment sounds like torture. That's why everyone leaves the city when they have kids -- because they need more space, and no one except the very rich can afford to buy a house there.

You need to get out of your bubble. Lots of people have kids in NYC and gasp! Even in DC in apartments. People like you are the worst.

You need to get out of your little fantasy world. Look at the stats. There are waaaaay fewer children in NYC, especially Manhattan and Brooklyn, than other major cities, not to mention non-major cities. Why do you think that happens? Do you think all these people who moved to NYC in their twenties all just, by coincidence, happen to leave when they have kids?

Care to cite those statistics? The last census data shows 6.5% of the New York City population is under 5 (roughly in line with the 6.1% in the US as a whole) and 21% are under 18. This is lower than the country as a whole (22.4%), but higher than DC proper (18.1%), in line with Chicago (21.5%), higher than Boston (16.3%), etc. It seems like NYC mostly reflects the country as a whole and for a larger city has, if anything, a higher than expected number of kids.

Look, this isn't something I'm just making up. There's been lots written about this. For example: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/where-have-all-the-children-gone/594133/

To quote:

"New York is the poster child of this urban renaissance. But as the city has attracted more wealth, housing prices have soared alongside the skyscrapers, and young families have found staying put with school-age children more difficult. Since 2011, the number of babies born in New York has declined 9 percent in the five boroughs and 15 percent in Manhattan. (At this rate, Manhattan’s infant population will halve in 30 years.) In that same period, the net number of New York residents leaving the city has more than doubled. There are many reasons New York might be shrinking, but most of them come down to the same unavoidable fact: Raising a family in the city is just too hard. And the same could be said of pretty much every other dense and expensive urban area in the country."

Also, you're being a little disingenuous when you 1. argue for more density and then 2. rely on numbers that are puffed up by areas of NYC that aren't densely populated. Look at Manhattan. 14 percent of the population is under the age of 18. That's almost half the national average. Those numbers get pushed back up when you start including figures from Queens, Staten Island, etc.

Queens is the fourth most densely populated county in America; it's almost twice as dense as DC. Brooklyn which is even denser (3x DC more or less) has almost 23% of it's population under 18, more than Staten Island (though not by a lot). I don't think you're making it up, but I do think you're falling for a story that gets told a lot, but isn't true. Millions of people happily raise kids in New York, they're mostly not people who read The Atlantic, so they're not part of the narrative, but they're in the data.

Moreover, your entire argument is a red herring because Manhattan level density levels aren't coming to anywhere near you. Pushing for density in the DC area is about pushing for things to be like Queens, where apparently people love to raise kids. Even you admit that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Increasing density is the same thing as gentrification.

If you replace single family homes with condos, what happens? You have more people living in the same place. What happens then? Bars and restaurants and stores move in, because they want to be in places with lots of foot traffic. What happens then? The price of those condos starts to spiral upwards because everyone wants to live within walking distance of bars and restaurants. People build more condos, which leads to more bars and restaurants, which makes more people want to live there, which sends the price of condos to the moon. Pretty soon, you've created U Street, where a 600-foot condo costs more than the three-bedroom house that used to stand there.

There's lots to recommend in this scenario. It's great for the tax base, and who doesnt like new bars and restaurants? But don't pretend you're creating affordable housing when you're really doing the opposite. You create a lot of high-priced condos and you pushed out a lot of poor people to make room for them.

This.

[Anonymous]

My big issue is David Alpert's hypocrisy. GGW says we need to get automobiles off the road ... except for David Alpert, who owns a car. GGW says we need more density near transit stations ... except for David Alpert, who lives in a single-family home two blocks from the Dupont Metro station, something his blog has railed against for years now. Doesn't apply to him, though. GGW says we need to take away power from ANCs, who are filled with retired busybodies with nothing else to do in their lives but complain. David Alpert, who holds no discernible job, gets to spend his days complaining in front of various DC committees because ... why? Because he knows better than everyone else? Because he's rich?

And the claim that GGW isn't pro-developer doesn't hold water, considering they take funding from developers.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:GGW is very much a pro-developer website. They push anything that supports greater urbanization and density, which aligns nicely with the real estate industry's goals.

Being YIMBY is not being pro-developer. But yeah, "developer" is not a dirty word if you're interested in increasing affordable housing and livable cities.

Developers don't care about affordable housing.

Well limiting the supply of housing surely isn't going to make it more affordable, or make cities more livable. (Unless your goal is to keep your neighborhood from changing at all, in which case, you're not really pro affordable housing either, most likely.)

Have you been to New York City? They've packed as many people in as humanly possible, and it is neither affordable nor livable.

I find NYC very livable. And limiting housing construction would not increase affordability, obviously. (PS: nobody every said that increasing density is all that's needed, but the converse -- being paranoidly anti-developer -- is only going to hurt, not help.)

You obviously don't have kids.

I have relatives raising kids in Brooklyn. Not sure how you can argue against 2 subway stops within 5 minutes, grocery store down the block, public school on the same block, Prospect Park 10 minutes away, Brooklyn library, etc etc etc ...

Ha. Famous last words. Just try it. I love NYC but the idea of raising kids in a little apartment sounds like torture. That's why everyone leaves the city when they have kids -- because they need more space, and no one except the very rich can afford to buy a house there.

You need to get out of your bubble. Lots of people have kids in NYC and gasp! Even in DC in apartments. People like you are the worst.

You need to get out of your little fantasy world. Look at the stats. There are waaaaay fewer children in NYC, especially Manhattan and Brooklyn, than other major cities, not to mention non-major cities. Why do you think that happens? Do you think all these people who moved to NYC in their twenties all just, by coincidence, happen to leave when they have kids?

Care to cite those statistics? The last census data shows 6.5% of the New York City population is under 5 (roughly in line with the 6.1% in the US as a whole) and 21% are under 18. This is lower than the country as a whole (22.4%), but higher than DC proper (18.1%), in line with Chicago (21.5%), higher than Boston (16.3%), etc. It seems like NYC mostly reflects the country as a whole and for a larger city has, if anything, a higher than expected number of kids.

Look, this isn't something I'm just making up. There's been lots written about this. For example: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/where-have-all-the-children-gone/594133/

To quote:

"New York is the poster child of this urban renaissance. But as the city has attracted more wealth, housing prices have soared alongside the skyscrapers, and young families have found staying put with school-age children more difficult. Since 2011, the number of babies born in New York has declined 9 percent in the five boroughs and 15 percent in Manhattan. (At this rate, Manhattan’s infant population will halve in 30 years.) In that same period, the net number of New York residents leaving the city has more than doubled. There are many reasons New York might be shrinking, but most of them come down to the same unavoidable fact: Raising a family in the city is just too hard. And the same could be said of pretty much every other dense and expensive urban area in the country."

Also, you're being a little disingenuous when you 1. argue for more density and then 2. rely on numbers that are puffed up by areas of NYC that aren't densely populated. Look at Manhattan. 14 percent of the population is under the age of 18. That's almost half the national average. Those numbers get pushed back up when you start including figures from Queens, Staten Island, etc.

+1

This is totally true about DC too, which is becoming a theme part for young, rich, childless adults:

Cities have effectively traded away their children, swapping capital for kids. College graduates descend into cities, inhale fast-casual meals, emit the fumes of overwork, get washed, and bounce to smaller cities or the suburbs by the time their kids are old enough to spell. It’s a coast-to-coast trend: In Washington, D.C., the overall population has grown more than 20 percent this century, but the number of children under the age of 18 has declined. Meanwhile, San Francisco has the lowest share of children of any of the largest 100 cities in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My big issue is David Alpert's hypocrisy. GGW says we need to get automobiles off the road ... except for David Alpert, who owns a car. GGW says we need more density near transit stations ... except for David Alpert, who lives in a single-family home two blocks from the Dupont Metro station, something his blog has railed against for years now. Doesn't apply to him, though. GGW says we need to take away power from ANCs, who are filled with retired busybodies with nothing else to do in their lives but complain. David Alpert, who holds no discernible job, gets to spend his days complaining in front of various DC committees because ... why? Because he knows better than everyone else? Because he's rich?

And the claim that GGW isn't pro-developer doesn't hold water, considering they take funding from developers.

Yes. This. So much this.

As with anything else that would like to bill itself as a social movement... urbanists or YIMBYs or housing activists or whatever they want to call themselves would have a lot more people on their team if they weren't so hypocritical and abrasive. Some of them are well-meaning civic-minded youth who would like more bike lanes and transit options and more bite-sized apartments for urban living. But then they name call everyone who disagrees with them as a NIMBY, and a fair number of them it's clear all they really want to do is make money off flipping their home into a duplex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My big issue is David Alpert's hypocrisy. GGW says we need to get automobiles off the road ... except for David Alpert, who owns a car. GGW says we need more density near transit stations ... except for David Alpert, who lives in a single-family home two blocks from the Dupont Metro station, something his blog has railed against for years now.

GGWash has never said that everyone has to be car free - just that we should change policies that encourage reliance on autos. Nor has it said that people should not be allowed to live in SFHs, even near metro - just that we should change zoning that bans other forms of development.


Its odd you should post this, when elsewhere people who do not drive much are lambasted for pursuing selfish agendas when they favor changes to roads, and if they live in condos or apartments their voices are considered less legitimate.

NIMBYs will damn you if you do, and damn you if you don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GGW is very much a pro-developer website. They push anything that supports greater urbanization and density, which aligns nicely with the real estate industry's goals.

GGW is funded by big development interests, their zoning law firms, etc. it pushes out smart growth propaganda and seeks to elect ANC and council candidates who will support their laissez-faire pro-development agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Increasing density is the same thing as gentrification.

Most gentrifying DC neighborhoods had gentrification BEFORE densification. When THs got to expensive in Dupont, whites (many of them gay) rehabbed THs in Logan Circle. When Logan Circle got expensive, they rehabbed houses in Shaw. The apartments followed. Banning the apartments would not stop or even slow the gentrification.

People who claim density is the cause of gentrification in DC either have not lived here long, or are arguing in bad faith, for the most part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW is very much a pro-developer website. They push anything that supports greater urbanization and density, which aligns nicely with the real estate industry's goals.

GGW is funded by big development interests, their zoning law firms, etc. it pushes out smart growth propaganda and seeks to elect ANC and council candidates who will support their laissez-faire pro-development agenda.

GGWash has multiple funding sources.

It does not promote laissez faire - it has run multiple pieces in favor of subsidized low income housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW is very much a pro-developer website. They push anything that supports greater urbanization and density, which aligns nicely with the real estate industry's goals.

Being YIMBY is not being pro-developer. But yeah, "developer" is not a dirty word if you're interested in increasing affordable housing and livable cities.

Developers don't care about affordable housing.

Well limiting the supply of housing surely isn't going to make it more affordable, or make cities more livable. (Unless your goal is to keep your neighborhood from changing at all, in which case, you're not really pro affordable housing either, most likely.)

Have you been to New York City? They've packed as many people in as humanly possible, and it is neither affordable nor livable.

I find NYC very livable. And limiting housing construction would not increase affordability, obviously. (PS: nobody every said that increasing density is all that's needed, but the converse -- being paranoidly anti-developer -- is only going to hurt, not help.)

You obviously don't have kids.

I have relatives raising kids in Brooklyn. Not sure how you can argue against 2 subway stops within 5 minutes, grocery store down the block, public school on the same block, Prospect Park 10 minutes away, Brooklyn library, etc etc etc ...

Ha. Famous last words. Just try it. I love NYC but the idea of raising kids in a little apartment sounds like torture. That's why everyone leaves the city when they have kids -- because they need more space, and no one except the very rich can afford to buy a house there.

You need to get out of your bubble. Lots of people have kids in NYC and gasp! Even in DC in apartments. People like you are the worst.

You need to get out of your little fantasy world. Look at the stats. There are waaaaay fewer children in NYC, especially Manhattan and Brooklyn, than other major cities, not to mention non-major cities. Why do you think that happens? Do you think all these people who moved to NYC in their twenties all just, by coincidence, happen to leave when they have kids?

Care to cite those statistics? The last census data shows 6.5% of the New York City population is under 5 (roughly in line with the 6.1% in the US as a whole) and 21% are under 18. This is lower than the country as a whole (22.4%), but higher than DC proper (18.1%), in line with Chicago (21.5%), higher than Boston (16.3%), etc. It seems like NYC mostly reflects the country as a whole and for a larger city has, if anything, a higher than expected number of kids.

Look, this isn't something I'm just making up. There's been lots written about this. For example: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/where-have-all-the-children-gone/594133/

To quote:

"New York is the poster child of this urban renaissance. But as the city has attracted more wealth, housing prices have soared alongside the skyscrapers, and young families have found staying put with school-age children more difficult. Since 2011, the number of babies born in New York has declined 9 percent in the five boroughs and 15 percent in Manhattan. (At this rate, Manhattan’s infant population will halve in 30 years.) In that same period, the net number of New York residents leaving the city has more than doubled. There are many reasons New York might be shrinking, but most of them come down to the same unavoidable fact: Raising a family in the city is just too hard. And the same could be said of pretty much every other dense and expensive urban area in the country."

Also, you're being a little disingenuous when you 1. argue for more density and then 2. rely on numbers that are puffed up by areas of NYC that aren't densely populated. Look at Manhattan. 14 percent of the population is under the age of 18. That's almost half the national average. Those numbers get pushed back up when you start including figures from Queens, Staten Island, etc.

Queens is the fourth most densely populated county in America; it's almost twice as dense as DC. Brooklyn which is even denser (3x DC more or less) has almost 23% of it's population under 18, more than Staten Island (though not by a lot). I don't think you're making it up, but I do think you're falling for a story that gets told a lot, but isn't true. Millions of people happily raise kids in New York, they're mostly not people who read The Atlantic, so they're not part of the narrative, but they're in the data.

Moreover, your entire argument is a red herring because Manhattan level density levels aren't coming to anywhere near you. Pushing for density in the DC area is about pushing for things to be like Queens, where apparently people love to raise kids. Even you admit that.

Actually, parts of DC -- which just happen to be the parts where people want to add density -- are already more densely populated than Queens or Staten Island or even parts of Brooklyn. We have multiple neighborhoods with more than 80,000 people per square mile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
As with anything else that would like to bill itself as a social movement... urbanists or YIMBYs or housing activists or whatever they want to call themselves would have a lot more people on their team if they weren't so hypocritical and abrasive. Some of them are well-meaning civic-minded youth who would like more bike lanes and transit options and more bite-sized apartments for urban living. But then they name call everyone who disagrees with them as a NIMBY, and a fair number of them it's clear all they really want to do is make money off flipping their home into a duplex.

I have heard much more abrasive rhetoric from (yes it is convenient shorthand) NIMBYs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is totally true about DC too, which is becoming a theme part for young, rich, childless adults:

Cities have effectively traded away their children, swapping capital for kids. College graduates descend into cities, inhale fast-casual meals, emit the fumes of overwork, get washed, and bounce to smaller cities or the suburbs by the time their kids are old enough to spell. It’s a coast-to-coast trend: In Washington, D.C., the overall population has grown more than 20 percent this century, but the number of children under the age of 18 has declined. Meanwhile, San Francisco has the lowest share of children of any of the largest 100 cities in the U.S.

Warmed over Kotkin.

Holding down supply, making it MORE expensive, would not keep families in cities.

I mean you could tax brunch I suppose.

You COULD, as some suggested, encourage more large units. But the number of large units, both houses and apts, occupied by roommate groups suggests that won't work - and that large units are taken by singles because there are not enough small units.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is totally true about DC too, which is becoming a theme part for young, rich, childless adults:

Cities have effectively traded away their children, swapping capital for kids. College graduates descend into cities, inhale fast-casual meals, emit the fumes of overwork, get washed, and bounce to smaller cities or the suburbs by the time their kids are old enough to spell. It’s a coast-to-coast trend: In Washington, D.C., the overall population has grown more than 20 percent this century, but the number of children under the age of 18 has declined. Meanwhile, San Francisco has the lowest share of children of any of the largest 100 cities in the U.S.

Warmed over Kotkin.

Holding down supply, making it MORE expensive, would not keep families in cities.

I mean you could tax brunch I suppose.

You COULD, as some suggested, encourage more large units. But the number of large units, both houses and apts, occupied by roommate groups suggests that won't work - and that large units are taken by singles because there are not enough small units.

Replacing single-family homes with condos favors childless adults over parents -- it basically tells people with kids to go somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

It's funny to hear Bowser talk about developers as if they are oppressed. DC has to have one of the most developer-friendly codes in the country.