Reply to Muriel Bowser and Developers

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Boy, you sound really threatened . For those who haven't heard of this non-profit civic group ( all have day jobs) :
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_100_on_the_Federal_City

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_100_on_the_Federal_City[/quote]

The website description linked does nothing to dissuade my opinion of the organization. Many of the things it opposed (skylight for example) have become iconic images in the District. Further it does nothing to show how the group selects its members or display any diversity of thought where urban planning is concerned. Indeed the last part of the entry acknowledges that many/most of the Committee of 100 members live in upper NW DC where they share an autocentric vision of the city in a groupthink manner.

It is fine that there is an organization that self-selects its membership and shares its own anti-environmental, anti-affordable housing and anti-mass transit vision, but to suggest that it has the same standing as an ANC or real elected body is a misnomer. To suggest that it should be put on a pedestal or lauded for its more recent work is a crock to most people across the city who may any attention to these matters. Yes, fighting the inner city freeways in the 1960's was a good thing, but that was 50 years ago. The Committee of 100 wasn't the primary driver of that issue and hasn't don't anything of significant positive relevance since.

[/quote]

"Acknowledges"?  You think that the Wikipedia entry is a press release from C100 or even an edited objective article?  Practically anyone with an axe to grind or a personal agenda can put about any claptrap out on Wikepedia, particularly about more minor subjects.  And as for the "acknowledgement", I am not involved with C100 but I personally know some who are and they live on Capitol Hill and several east of the Anacostia River.

I don't agree with every stand the organization has taken, and it would be extraordinary if anyone did with respect to every civic group.  But when I see the issues in which they've been instrumental over the years -- opposing loops of freeways through Washington and instead using highway funding to build Metro, preserving Lafayette Square, opposing the Three Sisters Bridge and freeway through the Palisades and Georgetown. the preservation and adaptive reuse of the old Patent Office Building (Hotel Monaco) and the protection of important vistas, I believe that they have had an important and positive impact on the qualify of life in the District.  As for the criticism that they are "car-centric" (and odd criticism given the organization's central role in stopping some destructive freeways), the reality is that not all neighborhoods in DC are well-served by transit.  Indeed, that's the problem with the so-called "smart growth agenda" which wants to use a broad brush (e.g., the zoning code revisions) to infill and densify all parts of the District with similar-type development, without taking account of local neighborhood characteristics.  [/quote]

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