Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 16:29     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Oh, this is relevant to DC.

It applies to any place where land is restricted, yet people really want to live. DC, Seattle, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, LA – every big, productive, talent-magnet city in the US.

In all of those cities, housing prices are going way way up. That's a supply of land and demand for housing issue.
And Berlin and Holland have faced that, and they're findiing new solutions.

Paris is late to the game. Housing prices there are CRAZY. So Paris has been trying to adopt the ideas above. DC and American cities are way late.

If you re-read carefully, DC already has all of this stuff.

- Public housing
- Multi-generational housing
- Group houses

Check, check and check. It just indicates to me that you haven’t been here very long and should get to know the place before trying to change policies.


(I can do snark too I see you don't know much about housing, and you also didn't read the article.

In many European cities there are downtown 5 bedroom apartments for families with kids. How many of them are there in the DMV? Miniscule numbers.
Public workforce housing in DC: nearly none. In European cities teachers can afford to live in most of the city. Not here. DC's telling teachers to go live in PG County.
Group houses for non-college kids: nearly none.

Look, good-faith people can critique any one of the above ideas. Many are a bit outside our experience. But some of them are good. And we should talk about them.

But it's just absolute denial to say "DC already has this." It's like saying the sky is black or my uncle is my grandma. Just massively incorrect.

First of all, you are telling on yourself. If you actually knew a Black person or any immigrant family you would intrinsically know about multi-generational housing. Clearly you don’t know people of other races or actually know them very well. So that should first disqualify you from discussing housing policy.

Second, Group House living in DC has been a major trend, fact of life and a huge part of the culture of the city going back to the 80s. For a long time, Mt. Pleasant was the epicenter of group house living in DC. I’m sorry that you don’t know this. People still live in Group Houses.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/03/27/whats-it-like-to-live-in-a-dc-group-house-during-covid-19/

Lastly, public housing in DC is run by DCHA. There is a waiting list. Unfortunately a lot of it is not well maintained.

Everything that article recommends is already being done. If you really want to make an impact on housing in DC, the last undeveloped tract of land is RFK. I highly recommend getting involved in planning discussion for the future of that site. Currently the majority of the land out of the flood plain is being planned for commercial and then some mixed use development. Go demand that this metro accessible property becomes 100% housing and mixed income housing. There could be tens of thousands of housing units there, which would make a real impact. All this other stuff would not because, again, DC is already doing it.


DP. I don't have time to dissect your rebuttal to the PP line by line, as nearly all of it is wrong or specious (they never said DC doesn't have multi-generational housing, for instance), but I have to call out the bolded. That's just flat-out wrong. Upzoning and increasing density throughout DC would have a much bigger impact on housing than developing RFK alone.

What are you arguing?

Someone posted an article and said that DC should adopt these policies. I pointed out that the examples in the article are already a big part of this city. Then this :jerkoffmotion: attacks me with ignorance. Now you’ve lost the plot.


What am I arguing? You made the claim that if one really wanted to make an impact on housing, developing RFK would make a real impact. I responded by saying that upzoning and increasing density throughout the city would have a larger impact than developing a single parcel. Do you follow now, or should I use shorter words?


Developing RFK would make an impact because it would be actual development resulting in more housing. Upzoning and increasing allowable density would merely enable more development but would not by itself result in more housing. Until urbanism addresses all of the approved but unbuilt units it’s worthless to me because it’s doing more to increase developer margins than it is to increase development.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 16:21     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
NP. I wouldn’t debate with this guy. There are poster/s here who are just dedicated to being “anti-GGW” as an identity. They are uniformly useless and have nothing to add. They’ll do stupid derailing sh*t like argue incessantly that because they lived in a group house in 1992 that therefore DC already has an adequate housing policy. They will totally distract from discussion.


Yes. I suspect they either live outside DC or they are part of the conservative hate-DC propaganda machine. Maybe they're one of the mediocrities who comes to the DC area to work at ideological chopshops like Heritage.

We know that Frank Luntz taught conservatives to denigrate DC for political advantage. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this was astroturfing.

It's just total denial of reality to deny that DC needs new housing policy.

It’s possible that people just vehemently disagree with you. I suspect you spend a lot of time cloistered talking to the same people, which is how you have so many blind spots in your ideology. You also exhibit a high degree of troll like behavior and project a lot of anger.


It's the anti-DC ideology that really does it – that's rarely seen in DC in any circles except the resentful unhappy conservative circles. And you seem a little unhinged about it. Are you being fed lies through the Murdoch WSJ? It's ok to read real news and talk to smart people, you know. The Koch dollars that pay your friends aren't real; they prop up people who couldn't hack it in the real world.

The real key disagreement in DC right now about housing is not about recognizing there's a crisis. That's widely agreed on. (Which is why it's so odd to hear "people" here denying that reality.)

The disagreement is how to make politicians do something about it. It's just a political hurdle. SFH homeowners don't want upzoning, but it's really the first thing that needs to be done.

I’m trying to digest that you think I’m part of some Frank Luntz, Rupert Murdoch, WSJ, Koch conspiracy because you’ve encountered someone who disagrees with you.

I think you need to take a break.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 16:16     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The problem with having no density, like Atlanta, Miami, LA, is TRAFFIC DISASTER.

That's why DC's traffic is terrible - we've expanded OUT of DC. We just can't move out past Loudon and keep building more sprawl housing. Unless you want everyone who's not rich or old to have hateful, numbing commutes.

And the DC is filled with smart talented people, which makes other smart talented people want to move here. So the answer can't be "no more people in DC". Let's do what the Europeans do, adopting their best ideas. Before they beat us as America's economy sinks into the mud because we've destroyed our world-leading talent economy. (That's already happening in Silicon Valley and Seattle – because we have crappy land use policies, jobs are moving to Vancouver and other parts of Canada.)


Have you been to Paris? The arrondisements suck...and the actual city is about the size of D.C. Paris is dirty, overcrowded, and extremely expensive. Also most Europeans cannot afford to buy a house. They rent or live with family in multi-generational housing.

Everyone that I have ever met that lives in Paris hates living in Paris and dreams about leaving.

The only nice part of Paris proper is the 16th and really the suburb of St. Cloud is ideal if you can afford it.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 16:08     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
NP. I wouldn’t debate with this guy. There are poster/s here who are just dedicated to being “anti-GGW” as an identity. They are uniformly useless and have nothing to add. They’ll do stupid derailing sh*t like argue incessantly that because they lived in a group house in 1992 that therefore DC already has an adequate housing policy. They will totally distract from discussion.


Yes. I suspect they either live outside DC or they are part of the conservative hate-DC propaganda machine. Maybe they're one of the mediocrities who comes to the DC area to work at ideological chopshops like Heritage.

We know that Frank Luntz taught conservatives to denigrate DC for political advantage. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this was astroturfing.

It's just total denial of reality to deny that DC needs new housing policy.

It’s possible that people just vehemently disagree with you. I suspect you spend a lot of time cloistered talking to the same people, which is how you have so many blind spots in your ideology. You also exhibit a high degree of troll like behavior and project a lot of anger.


It's the anti-DC ideology that really does it – that's rarely seen in DC in any circles except the resentful unhappy conservative circles. And you seem a little unhinged about it. Are you being fed lies through the Murdoch WSJ? It's ok to read real news and talk to smart people, you know. The Koch dollars that pay your friends aren't real; they prop up people who couldn't hack it in the real world.

The real key disagreement in DC right now about housing is not about recognizing there's a crisis. That's widely agreed on. (Which is why it's so odd to hear "people" here denying that reality.)

The disagreement is how to make politicians do something about it. It's just a political hurdle. SFH homeowners don't want upzoning, but it's really the first thing that needs to be done.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 16:02     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
NP. I wouldn’t debate with this guy. There are poster/s here who are just dedicated to being “anti-GGW” as an identity. They are uniformly useless and have nothing to add. They’ll do stupid derailing sh*t like argue incessantly that because they lived in a group house in 1992 that therefore DC already has an adequate housing policy. They will totally distract from discussion.


Yes. I suspect they either live outside DC or they are part of the conservative hate-DC propaganda machine. Maybe they're one of the mediocrities who comes to the DC area to work at ideological chopshops like Heritage.

We know that Frank Luntz taught conservatives to denigrate DC for political advantage. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this was astroturfing.

It's just total denial of reality to deny that DC needs new housing policy.

It’s possible that people just vehemently disagree with you. I suspect you spend a lot of time cloistered talking to the same people, which is how you have so many blind spots in your ideology. You also exhibit a high degree of troll like behavior and project a lot of anger.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:49     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Who wouldn't want more options to live near their parents while they are raising kids? Imagine that some of the new 1bd luxury developments going up were instead, due to policies that helped developers build them, buildings with 3bd's with nearby in-law suites. There'd be demand for that.

The only real way that happens at scale is if we upzone a whole bunch of Ward 3 and build buildings like that there. But sadly, a minority of older Ward 3 homeowners are blocking ideas like this.


No, your idea is simply and misses that what is really needed is more developed in the underdeveloped parts of the city. Any idiot real estate person, including Orange Man, could do a successful real estate project in Ward. DC must spread out the new developments in all parts of the City.


There's not enough land. We need to build higher in all Wards. But it is Ward 3 that has the most SFHs and is also the place with most demand for housing.

And were you referring to Traitor Trump the corrupt criminal? That guy is a loser, who just happened to arrive at a time when Koch and Murdoch needed a paid professional scammer and liar to hoodwink their uneducated white base. He's a chump who couldn't build a shed without dirty money he was laundering for oligarchs.
And he did the same thing in politics - launder dirty money from American oligarchs Koch, Uihlein, Murdoch, Wilks, Adelson, and Walton into a stolen-election corrupt criminal presidency.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:45     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
NP. I wouldn’t debate with this guy. There are poster/s here who are just dedicated to being “anti-GGW” as an identity. They are uniformly useless and have nothing to add. They’ll do stupid derailing sh*t like argue incessantly that because they lived in a group house in 1992 that therefore DC already has an adequate housing policy. They will totally distract from discussion.


Yes. I suspect they either live outside DC or they are part of the conservative hate-DC propaganda machine. Maybe they're one of the mediocrities who comes to the DC area to work at ideological chopshops like Heritage.

We know that Frank Luntz taught conservatives to denigrate DC for political advantage. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this was astroturfing.

It's just total denial of reality to deny that DC needs new housing policy.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:40     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:It applies to any place where land is restricted, yet people really want to live. DC, Seattle, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, LA – every big, productive, talent-magnet city in the US.

In all of those cities, housing prices are going way way up. That's a supply of land and demand for housing issue.

And Berlin and Holland have faced that, and they're findiing new solutions.


Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:


DP. I don't have time to dissect your rebuttal to the PP line by line, as nearly all of it is wrong or specious (they never said DC doesn't have multi-generational housing, for instance), but I have to call out the bolded. That's just flat-out wrong. Upzoning and increasing density throughout DC would have a much bigger impact on housing than developing RFK alone.

What are you arguing?

Someone posted an article and said that DC should adopt these policies. I pointed out that the examples in the article are already a big part of this city.


What am I arguing? You made the claim that if one really wanted to make an impact on housing, developing RFK would make a real impact. I responded by saying that upzoning and increasing density throughout the city would have a larger impact than developing a single parcel. Do you follow now, or should I use shorter words?


Thank you, PP. Just chiming in to agree.

The wrong and specious post is basically claiming that if there exists one multi-generational house in DC that's enough multi-generational housing.
No.
If that's an option we want to explore (as Berlin has), we need policies to support it.

Who wouldn't want more options to live near their parents while they are raising kids? Imagine that some of the new 1bd luxury developments going up were instead, due to policies that helped developers build them, buildings with 3bd's with nearby in-law suites. There'd be demand for that.

The only real way that happens at scale is if we upzone a whole bunch of Ward 3 and build buildings like that there. But sadly, a minority of older Ward 3 homeowners are blocking ideas like this.


No, your idea is simply and misses that what is really needed is more developed in the underdeveloped parts of the city. Any idiot real estate person, including Orange Man, could do a successful real estate project in Ward. DC must spread out the new developments in all parts of the City.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:39     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly you GGW people should take this back to GGW.

DC actually already has public housing and it’s been in the process of trying to dismantle much of it for the 30 years that I’ve lived here. Why? Because it was and is dangerous and ultimately spawned a culture that ultimately harmed the people it was supposed to help.

To suggest that DC needs more public housing shows that you know little to nothing about DC, have barely spent any time living in DC (if you do at all) and really have no idea what you are talking about.


That is only when you put all the public housing together, not when you spread it through out the community.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:37     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:The problem with having no density, like Atlanta, Miami, LA, is TRAFFIC DISASTER.

That's why DC's traffic is terrible - we've expanded OUT of DC. We just can't move out past Loudon and keep building more sprawl housing. Unless you want everyone who's not rich or old to have hateful, numbing commutes.

And the DC is filled with smart talented people, which makes other smart talented people want to move here. So the answer can't be "no more people in DC". Let's do what the Europeans do, adopting their best ideas. Before they beat us as America's economy sinks into the mud because we've destroyed our world-leading talent economy. (That's already happening in Silicon Valley and Seattle – because we have crappy land use policies, jobs are moving to Vancouver and other parts of Canada.)


What is missing here is that DC itself has fewer residents than in the 1950s, that many of the new jobs are in the suburbs not DC, and that, while DMV has grown tremendously, DC itself has only marginally so. And that will not change. DC itself attracts certain industries. The underlying assumption above is that all of the new jobs are in DC or could be in DC. Latter is simply not true. The entire Internet revolution in NoVa had literally nothing to do with DC. And the growing biotech companies in MoCo similarly have nothing to do with DC. And that will not change. The entire premises behind the spread to Loudoun, etc, is that everybody is working in DC. Simply, not true.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:29     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The problem with having no density, like Atlanta, Miami, LA, is TRAFFIC DISASTER.

That's why DC's traffic is terrible - we've expanded OUT of DC. We just can't move out past Loudon and keep building more sprawl housing. Unless you want everyone who's not rich or old to have hateful, numbing commutes.

And the DC is filled with smart talented people, which makes other smart talented people want to move here. So the answer can't be "no more people in DC". Let's do what the Europeans do, adopting their best ideas. Before they beat us as America's economy sinks into the mud because we've destroyed our world-leading talent economy. (That's already happening in Silicon Valley and Seattle – because we have crappy land use policies, jobs are moving to Vancouver and other parts of Canada.)

The worst traffic in the region is on the highways, not the city. The American Legion Bridge, the Springfield Mixing Bowl, etc. By comparison, traffic inside the beltway is calm and relatively easy. During rush hour it’s only 25 minutes from downtown Bethesda to the White House. Even faster from Ballston.


Wisconsin, Connecticut, and 16th Street traffic is also insanity. It's almost faster to bike from Bethesda to Georgetown than to drive.

And that's with a US top-5 public transit system serving the Bethesda-to-DC corridor. Before COVID that commute, train and car, was bursting at the seams.

The fastest route would be to take the Clara Barton Parkway. Second fastest is to take Mass Ave to the Dalecarlia Parkway to MacArthur. Third fastest route is to take Mass Ave to Wisconsin. After that you should take Reno/34th to National Cathedral or Naval Observatory and then cut back to Wisconsin. Last is just to go straight down Wisconsin. It’s actually not the volume of cars on Wisconsin that is the problem, it’s all the streetlights. Or you could just use Waze.

But yeah, it’s really not what you think it is and not that hard to do efficiently. It’s certainly faster to drive to Georgetown from Bethesda than to take transit.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:28     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Oh, this is relevant to DC.

It applies to any place where land is restricted, yet people really want to live. DC, Seattle, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, LA – every big, productive, talent-magnet city in the US.

In all of those cities, housing prices are going way way up. That's a supply of land and demand for housing issue.
And Berlin and Holland have faced that, and they're findiing new solutions.

Paris is late to the game. Housing prices there are CRAZY. So Paris has been trying to adopt the ideas above. DC and American cities are way late.

If you re-read carefully, DC already has all of this stuff.

- Public housing
- Multi-generational housing
- Group houses

Check, check and check. It just indicates to me that you haven’t been here very long and should get to know the place before trying to change policies.


(I can do snark too I see you don't know much about housing, and you also didn't read the article.

In many European cities there are downtown 5 bedroom apartments for families with kids. How many of them are there in the DMV? Miniscule numbers.
Public workforce housing in DC: nearly none. In European cities teachers can afford to live in most of the city. Not here. DC's telling teachers to go live in PG County.
Group houses for non-college kids: nearly none.

Look, good-faith people can critique any one of the above ideas. Many are a bit outside our experience. But some of them are good. And we should talk about them.

But it's just absolute denial to say "DC already has this." It's like saying the sky is black or my uncle is my grandma. Just massively incorrect.

First of all, you are telling on yourself. If you actually knew a Black person or any immigrant family you would intrinsically know about multi-generational housing. Clearly you don’t know people of other races or actually know them very well. So that should first disqualify you from discussing housing policy.

Second, Group House living in DC has been a major trend, fact of life and a huge part of the culture of the city going back to the 80s. For a long time, Mt. Pleasant was the epicenter of group house living in DC. I’m sorry that you don’t know this. People still live in Group Houses.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/03/27/whats-it-like-to-live-in-a-dc-group-house-during-covid-19/

Lastly, public housing in DC is run by DCHA. There is a waiting list. Unfortunately a lot of it is not well maintained.

Everything that article recommends is already being done. If you really want to make an impact on housing in DC, the last undeveloped tract of land is RFK. I highly recommend getting involved in planning discussion for the future of that site. Currently the majority of the land out of the flood plain is being planned for commercial and then some mixed use development. Go demand that this metro accessible property becomes 100% housing and mixed income housing. There could be tens of thousands of housing units there, which would make a real impact. All this other stuff would not because, again, DC is already doing it.


DP. I don't have time to dissect your rebuttal to the PP line by line, as nearly all of it is wrong or specious (they never said DC doesn't have multi-generational housing, for instance), but I have to call out the bolded. That's just flat-out wrong. Upzoning and increasing density throughout DC would have a much bigger impact on housing than developing RFK alone.

What are you arguing?

Someone posted an article and said that DC should adopt these policies. I pointed out that the examples in the article are already a big part of this city. Then this :jerkoffmotion: attacks me with ignorance. Now you’ve lost the plot.


What am I arguing? You made the claim that if one really wanted to make an impact on housing, developing RFK would make a real impact. I responded by saying that upzoning and increasing density throughout the city would have a larger impact than developing a single parcel. Do you follow now, or should I use shorter words?


NP. I wouldn’t debate with this guy. There are poster/s here who are just dedicated to being “anti-GGW” as an identity. They are uniformly useless and have nothing to add. They’ll do stupid derailing sh*t like argue incessantly that because they lived in a group house in 1992 that therefore DC already has an adequate housing policy. They will totally distract from discussion.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:24     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

It applies to any place where land is restricted, yet people really want to live. DC, Seattle, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, LA – every big, productive, talent-magnet city in the US.

In all of those cities, housing prices are going way way up. That's a supply of land and demand for housing issue.

And Berlin and Holland have faced that, and they're findiing new solutions.


Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:


DP. I don't have time to dissect your rebuttal to the PP line by line, as nearly all of it is wrong or specious (they never said DC doesn't have multi-generational housing, for instance), but I have to call out the bolded. That's just flat-out wrong. Upzoning and increasing density throughout DC would have a much bigger impact on housing than developing RFK alone.

What are you arguing?

Someone posted an article and said that DC should adopt these policies. I pointed out that the examples in the article are already a big part of this city.


What am I arguing? You made the claim that if one really wanted to make an impact on housing, developing RFK would make a real impact. I responded by saying that upzoning and increasing density throughout the city would have a larger impact than developing a single parcel. Do you follow now, or should I use shorter words?


Thank you, PP. Just chiming in to agree.

The wrong and specious post is basically claiming that if there exists one multi-generational house in DC that's enough multi-generational housing.
No.
If that's an option we want to explore (as Berlin has), we need policies to support it.

Who wouldn't want more options to live near their parents while they are raising kids? Imagine that some of the new 1bd luxury developments going up were instead, due to policies that helped developers build them, buildings with 3bd's with nearby in-law suites. There'd be demand for that.

The only real way that happens at scale is if we upzone a whole bunch of Ward 3 and build buildings like that there. But sadly, a minority of older Ward 3 homeowners are blocking ideas like this.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:18     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The problem with having no density, like Atlanta, Miami, LA, is TRAFFIC DISASTER.

That's why DC's traffic is terrible - we've expanded OUT of DC. We just can't move out past Loudon and keep building more sprawl housing. Unless you want everyone who's not rich or old to have hateful, numbing commutes.

And the DC is filled with smart talented people, which makes other smart talented people want to move here. So the answer can't be "no more people in DC". Let's do what the Europeans do, adopting their best ideas. Before they beat us as America's economy sinks into the mud because we've destroyed our world-leading talent economy. (That's already happening in Silicon Valley and Seattle – because we have crappy land use policies, jobs are moving to Vancouver and other parts of Canada.)

The worst traffic in the region is on the highways, not the city. The American Legion Bridge, the Springfield Mixing Bowl, etc. By comparison, traffic inside the beltway is calm and relatively easy. During rush hour it’s only 25 minutes from downtown Bethesda to the White House. Even faster from Ballston.


Wisconsin, Connecticut, and 16th Street traffic is also insanity. It's almost faster to bike from Bethesda to Georgetown than to drive.

And that's with a US top-5 public transit system serving the Bethesda-to-DC corridor. Before COVID that commute, train and car, was bursting at the seams.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2021 15:07     Subject: "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Oh, this is relevant to DC.

It applies to any place where land is restricted, yet people really want to live. DC, Seattle, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, LA – every big, productive, talent-magnet city in the US.

In all of those cities, housing prices are going way way up. That's a supply of land and demand for housing issue.
And Berlin and Holland have faced that, and they're findiing new solutions.

Paris is late to the game. Housing prices there are CRAZY. So Paris has been trying to adopt the ideas above. DC and American cities are way late.

If you re-read carefully, DC already has all of this stuff.

- Public housing
- Multi-generational housing
- Group houses

Check, check and check. It just indicates to me that you haven’t been here very long and should get to know the place before trying to change policies.


(I can do snark too I see you don't know much about housing, and you also didn't read the article.

In many European cities there are downtown 5 bedroom apartments for families with kids. How many of them are there in the DMV? Miniscule numbers.
Public workforce housing in DC: nearly none. In European cities teachers can afford to live in most of the city. Not here. DC's telling teachers to go live in PG County.
Group houses for non-college kids: nearly none.

Look, good-faith people can critique any one of the above ideas. Many are a bit outside our experience. But some of them are good. And we should talk about them.

But it's just absolute denial to say "DC already has this." It's like saying the sky is black or my uncle is my grandma. Just massively incorrect.

First of all, you are telling on yourself. If you actually knew a Black person or any immigrant family you would intrinsically know about multi-generational housing. Clearly you don’t know people of other races or actually know them very well. So that should first disqualify you from discussing housing policy.

Second, Group House living in DC has been a major trend, fact of life and a huge part of the culture of the city going back to the 80s. For a long time, Mt. Pleasant was the epicenter of group house living in DC. I’m sorry that you don’t know this. People still live in Group Houses.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/03/27/whats-it-like-to-live-in-a-dc-group-house-during-covid-19/

Lastly, public housing in DC is run by DCHA. There is a waiting list. Unfortunately a lot of it is not well maintained.

Everything that article recommends is already being done. If you really want to make an impact on housing in DC, the last undeveloped tract of land is RFK. I highly recommend getting involved in planning discussion for the future of that site. Currently the majority of the land out of the flood plain is being planned for commercial and then some mixed use development. Go demand that this metro accessible property becomes 100% housing and mixed income housing. There could be tens of thousands of housing units there, which would make a real impact. All this other stuff would not because, again, DC is already doing it.


DP. I don't have time to dissect your rebuttal to the PP line by line, as nearly all of it is wrong or specious (they never said DC doesn't have multi-generational housing, for instance), but I have to call out the bolded. That's just flat-out wrong. Upzoning and increasing density throughout DC would have a much bigger impact on housing than developing RFK alone.

What are you arguing?

Someone posted an article and said that DC should adopt these policies. I pointed out that the examples in the article are already a big part of this city. Then this :jerkoffmotion: attacks me with ignorance. Now you’ve lost the plot.


What am I arguing? You made the claim that if one really wanted to make an impact on housing, developing RFK would make a real impact. I responded by saying that upzoning and increasing density throughout the city would have a larger impact than developing a single parcel. Do you follow now, or should I use shorter words?