anyone else dislike Greater Greater Washington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:David Alpert lives like three blocks from the Dupont Metro yet still feels the need to own a car (he freely admits this). This would be fine -- to eacha his own -- except for the fact that GGW articles routinely pillory people who feel the need to own cars even when they live in walkable neighborhoods. But Alpert being one of those people is conveniently forgotten. He's a massive hypocrite and fraud.

No it doesn't. It is about transportation choices including owning a car. That you are reading into it what you are is more of a reflection of your own biases.

Sure, but GGW routinely paints car ownership as a bad "choice," especially for people who live close to abundant public transportation.

[Anonymous]

I probably agree with them on 85 percent of their stances but got so put off by their holier-than-thou tone -- plus their turn toward articles that clearly are clickbait -- that I stopped reading and stopped contributing donations.

[Anonymous]

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.

The presumption is likely that most people have cars and are able to drop their kids off and wiz to and from work, but for those who don't have cars, and have to negotiate around the city or region, how can things be improved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:David Alpert lives like three blocks from the Dupont Metro yet still feels the need to own a car (he freely admits this). This would be fine -- to eacha his own -- except for the fact that GGW articles routinely pillory people who feel the need to own cars even when they live in walkable neighborhoods. But Alpert being one of those people is conveniently forgotten. He's a massive hypocrite and fraud.

No it doesn't. It is about transportation choices including owning a car. That you are reading into it what you are is more of a reflection of your own biases.

Sure, but GGW routinely paints car ownership as a bad "choice," especially for people who live close to abundant public transportation.

Please show me an article where car ownership is painted as a bad choice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:David Alpert lives like three blocks from the Dupont Metro yet still feels the need to own a car (he freely admits this). This would be fine -- to eacha his own -- except for the fact that GGW articles routinely pillory people who feel the need to own cars even when they live in walkable neighborhoods. But Alpert being one of those people is conveniently forgotten. He's a massive hypocrite and fraud.

No it doesn't. It is about transportation choices including owning a car. That you are reading into it what you are is more of a reflection of your own biases.

Sure, but GGW routinely paints car ownership as a bad "choice," especially for people who live close to abundant public transportation.

Please show me an article where car ownership is painted as a bad choice?

https://ggwash.org/view/64237/driving-a-car-could-make-you-a-bad-person

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:David Alpert lives like three blocks from the Dupont Metro yet still feels the need to own a car (he freely admits this). This would be fine -- to eacha his own -- except for the fact that GGW articles routinely pillory people who feel the need to own cars even when they live in walkable neighborhoods. But Alpert being one of those people is conveniently forgotten. He's a massive hypocrite and fraud.

No it doesn't. It is about transportation choices including owning a car. That you are reading into it what you are is more of a reflection of your own biases.

Sure, but GGW routinely paints car ownership as a bad "choice," especially for people who live close to abundant public transportation.

Please show me an article where car ownership is painted as a bad choice?

https://ggwash.org/view/64237/driving-a-car-could-make-you-a-bad-person

Please explain how this is showing that car ownership is a bad choice? I see it as an indictment on our road design and a call to improve standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW thinks everyone should live in places like NoMA ah no thank you

GGW doesn't "think" anything.

It a blog about urban issues in DC with a wide range of different contributors, some of whom disagree with one another.

Many of the contributors do have expertise in the areas they write about though and almost all are personally involved in the issues they post about.

What do you care anyhow? Don't read it if you aren't interested.

nope they are the poster child for "smart growth" which is making mini manhattans at every metro stop in the region

I care because plenty of people in government actually take them seriously

It actually makes sense to have mini-manhattans around each of the of the Metro stations. The region has invested billions of dollars in metro, why not focus population density where it is easiest to use it and provide a car-free option to residents in the region.

If you want to live a car-dependent lifestyle, no one is stopping you.

I actually agree with them that it makes sense to upzone near transit. The problem is even if you did that you would still need hundreds of thousands of places for people to live and infrastructure (Cars/roads) to get them from point A to point B. GGW is like a philsopher who doesn't understand their perfect world utopia is not realistic. The fact that Albert has a car is just the icing on the cake.

[Anonymous]

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.

The presumption is likely that most people have cars and are able to drop their kids off and wiz to and from work, but for those who don't have cars, and have to negotiate around the city or region, how can things be improved?

No, they are actively hostile towards cars and believe everyone can just bike or metro.

[Anonymous]

Remember when GGW scolded grieving funeral-goers for temporarily blocking a bike lane? GGW at its classiest!

https://ggwash.org/view/2797/its-not-the-funeral-lane

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember when GGW scolded grieving funeral-goers for temporarily blocking a bike lane? GGW at its classiest!

https://ggwash.org/view/2797/its-not-the-funeral-lane

Well, that's what happens when every inch of parking lot/green space has a high rise building on it. Tough to find parking spots for the people who need them.

Besides, it was a funeral. Seems tacky and gross to be complaining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember when GGW scolded grieving funeral-goers for temporarily blocking a bike lane? GGW at its classiest!

https://ggwash.org/view/2797/its-not-the-funeral-lane

Strange that they would scold a funeral, when posts on GGW frequently suggest that single family home-dwelling senior citizens in places live Cleveland Park and Chevy Chase should just move out to a nursing home and die. Classy, indeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW is all about the affordable housing gravy train going for the handful of developers that have the lawyers and political connections to really gorge on those projects.

GGW's latest mantra is that the way to solve affordable housing and stop gentrification is to upzone the hell out of Upper Northwest. Never mind that Ward 3 contains the second highest number of rent controlled units in DC. GGW wants to upzone large swaths and corridors to downtown height and density zones. What this would mean is that a number of non-class A apartment buildings, which currently are rent controlled, could fall to the wrecking ball and be replaced by bigger upscale, high cost projects. GGW claims that these projects will contain 10% "inclusive zoning/IZ" units, which is true, but those are at a much higher price point than most rent controlled dwellings. So the result will be a net loss of affordable housing, not an increase.

Who will save Ward 3 from gentrification!

As you know rent controlled units are a tiny percentage of the cities affordable housing stock.

As you also know Ward 3 contains very few of the cities affordable housing units.

As you also know Ward 3 has had very little new housing built in the last 30 years and was down zoned in previous Comp Plan cycles because the NIMBY's found an ally in Phil "Being There" Mendelson.

You are spouting non-sense and you know it.

Ok well, how about the facts of what PP asserted? Will the proposed plan increase affordable housing for people who need it, or not? PP seemed to make a good argument.

DP but I will suggest that the Comp Plan proposal helps mitigate the reasons why so many PUDs are being held up in court right now. That is what, 4500 housing units including about 500 affordable units. How does that appeals process help the affordable housing crisis? It is holding up the decent for the perfect, which will never happen.

You might want actually to read about the court cases. The DC court of appeals gave the Zoning Commission multiple chances to paper their decision record on how the PUDs were "not inconsistent" with the Comprehensive Plan, which is the legal standard. The ZC couldn't even do that, probably because its members were watching basketball on their monitors during the zoning hearings. (This is not a joke; parties have observed this before.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW is all about the affordable housing gravy train going for the handful of developers that have the lawyers and political connections to really gorge on those projects.

GGW's latest mantra is that the way to solve affordable housing and stop gentrification is to upzone the hell out of Upper Northwest. Never mind that Ward 3 contains the second highest number of rent controlled units in DC. GGW wants to upzone large swaths and corridors to downtown height and density zones. What this would mean is that a number of non-class A apartment buildings, which currently are rent controlled, could fall to the wrecking ball and be replaced by bigger upscale, high cost projects. GGW claims that these projects will contain 10% "inclusive zoning/IZ" units, which is true, but those are at a much higher price point than most rent controlled dwellings. So the result will be a net loss of affordable housing, not an increase.

Who will save Ward 3 from gentrification!

As you know rent controlled units are a tiny percentage of the cities affordable housing stock.

As you also know Ward 3 contains very few of the cities affordable housing units.

As you also know Ward 3 has had very little new housing built in the last 30 years and was down zoned in previous Comp Plan cycles because the NIMBY's found an ally in Phil "Being There" Mendelson.

You are spouting non-sense and you know it.

Ok well, how about the facts of what PP asserted? Will the proposed plan increase affordable housing for people who need it, or not? PP seemed to make a good argument.

No - PP is conflating "rent control" and "affordable housing." They are different concepts, and PP is using a bait and switch to argue that Ward 3 has its fair share of affordable housing. That's nonsense.

Rent control is affordable housing. The question is whether the tenant could pay more - but there's no question its affordable housing. I seriously doubt there are a lot of 1%ers living in rent controlled NW one-bedroom apartments. But if there are, go ahead and show me the data.

The real bait and switch (or conflation, if you prefer) is suggesting that inclusionary zoning (IZ) and affordable housing are the same thing. They are not. There are plenty of Millenials earning decent incomes who qualify for IZ units.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW is all about the affordable housing gravy train going for the handful of developers that have the lawyers and political connections to really gorge on those projects.

GGW's latest mantra is that the way to solve affordable housing and stop gentrification is to upzone the hell out of Upper Northwest. Never mind that Ward 3 contains the second highest number of rent controlled units in DC. GGW wants to upzone large swaths and corridors to downtown height and density zones. What this would mean is that a number of non-class A apartment buildings, which currently are rent controlled, could fall to the wrecking ball and be replaced by bigger upscale, high cost projects. GGW claims that these projects will contain 10% "inclusive zoning/IZ" units, which is true, but those are at a much higher price point than most rent controlled dwellings. So the result will be a net loss of affordable housing, not an increase.

Who will save Ward 3 from gentrification!

As you know rent controlled units are a tiny percentage of the cities affordable housing stock.

As you also know Ward 3 contains very few of the cities affordable housing units.

As you also know Ward 3 has had very little new housing built in the last 30 years and was down zoned in previous Comp Plan cycles because the NIMBY's found an ally in Phil "Being There" Mendelson.

You are spouting non-sense and you know it.

Ok well, how about the facts of what PP asserted? Will the proposed plan increase affordable housing for people who need it, or not? PP seemed to make a good argument.

No - PP is conflating "rent control" and "affordable housing." They are different concepts, and PP is using a bait and switch to argue that Ward 3 has its fair share of affordable housing. That's nonsense.

Rent control is affordable housing. The question is whether the tenant could pay more - but there's no question its affordable housing. I seriously doubt there are a lot of 1%ers living in rent controlled NW one-bedroom apartments. But if there are, go ahead and show me the data.

The real bait and switch (or conflation, if you prefer) is suggesting that inclusionary zoning (IZ) and affordable housing are the same thing. They are not. There are plenty of Millenials earning decent incomes who qualify for IZ units.

[Anonymous]

I don't usually care for Courtland Milloy in the Washington Post. But he deliciously skewered the type of folks who consider Greater Greater Washington to be their bible:

"Myopic little twits."