Reply to The Atlantic on SF: is DC too a failed city or about to be one?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]While I wish Columbia Heights had a bit more green space---the lack of public space isn't causing the decline.  Columbia Heights has a cute splash park which is no longer used by children because it is a summer resting place for drunken derelicts.  DC USA can't attract tenants to re-tenant spaces like the former Staples and Modell because (a) it is a tough market for retail anyway post-pandemic; (b) the unpermitted cart/table/tent vendors blocking the sidewalk and entrance to DCUSA are a huge turnoff to potential tenants; (c) DC won't arrest people for petty theft/shoplifting; and (d) there are shootouts in and around the metro.  Granted, the shootouts are various bad guys targeting other bad guys, but sooner or later an innocent bystander will be shot.  And all of this downward decline has happened on Brianne Nadeau's watch.  [/quote]

They are currently building out the former Modell’s and Staples spaces for Lidl.  DCUSA will finally be about leased out except for maybe the Panera space.  I don’t have many issues with the vendors, but they really need to just define areas that need to remain clear.  The corner in front of Bank of America gets squeezed where I feel it invites conflict with people trying to squeeze through.  The tents with the hot food need to put the burners on the non-sidewalk side, just a burn situation waiting to happen.  Brianne wants to support these vendors but then does nothing to make it manageable on a daily basis for the general public trying to go about there business.[/quote]
This is exactly the whole point and the problem. They could have reserved a third of that site for green space and a park and DC USA could have still built out the rest of the site. They could have pushed the building back from the street more to have an inviting place for people to congregate, instead “building to the property line” has led to space conflicts and misery.

Columbia Heights needs more space for kid. It’s needs more green space. Without those things it is uninviting and when the built environment is uninviting people that you would want to come there and spend their time and money will do so somewhere else.

I think Columbia Heights is the only neighborhood that I know of that has gentrified and then de-gentrified and it’s head spinning that it has all happened in less than 20 years. That’s bad planning and people responsible need to take accountability, particularly considering the canvas that they had to work with.

It could have been a beautiful, mixed income family oriented neighborhood. Instead they pushed out many families and then the upwardly mobile young people migrated to nicer parts of the city with better amenities and now this is what is left. Misery. And so utterly predictable. [/quote]

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