[nicollo]

It took 14th St. corridor almost 40 years to recover from the ‘68 riots.

Forty years.

And it only came back becuase of gays who didn’t worry about the schools b/c they don’t have children.

Who will save the ruined cities next time?

[hal ogen]

We left WDC after 30+ years of “living” there. It is truly hopeless there. Escape while you are still allowed to do so. We moved to sanity in S UT...our Mayberry. Few LIB lunatics...none of their opressive BS. LIBs stay away. You are despised here. Being shunned will be the least of your worries.

[sphinx]

God put gay men on earth for one reason: to help gentrify battered neighborhoods. As you note, they don't have to worry about the schools (unless they teach, which some do). They are not insensitive to security, but their risk tolerance is higher because they don't have wives and kids. They are DINKs. They are, therefore, an indicator species when it comes to gentrification. The gays move in, and good things start to happen. In many areas, one can say the same about asians and hispanics. They work hard and build for the future, and pretty soon white yuppies will trail along.

The real turnaround for DC, however, was de facto bankruptcy, the Control Board, and Anthony Williams, who should be added to Mount Rushmore. It is amazing what getting rid of a race baiting crackhead crook of a mayor can do, especially when he is replaced by someone who is honest, competent, and wise enough to know that a city has to work for taxpayers and businesses, not just junkies, welfare moms and featherbedded government workers. Starting with Anthony Williams, we had a run of pretty good government. Vincent Gray and Muriel Bowser have been backsliders, but the city has changed enough that I don't think even a feckless panderer like Bowser can reverse the underlying dynamic.

As Guliani showed in New York, good leadership makes all the difference. The problems of the cities are largely self-inflicted. If a city can elect leadership that actually wants the city to work, as opposed to being merely looters and grifters, things can turn around.

Gentrification in DC does not happen in isolation. Suburban gridlock is suffocating. If I were a suburbanite, I would bend over backwards to live within a few miles of my job, but even so, movement around the area is awful and is only getting worse. Those older, close-in neighborhoods look more and more attractive with each wasted hour you spend in your car.

A lot of people here are operating on old information about DC. Many don't realize how many neighborhoods have flipped. Many have no idea how expensive DC has gotten, even in areas that your archived data is telling you are "bad." Most of DC is already unaffordable for young people, the exception being the new frontier of far Northeast and close-in PG County.

A lot of people here are unfamiliar with those areas because they were regarded for so long as blighted. If you are operating on old information, however, just drive down U.S. 1 from the beltway into DC (Rhode Island Avenue, which is Route 1, or Bladensburg Road, which is "alternate U.S. 1"). If you've not done it for awhile, you will not believe what College Park and Hyattsville look like today. Bladensburg Road is in the very early stages of being rebuilt, and it will take some time because it parallels a rail line, which holds things back. But it will happen. The Rhode Island corridor is sprucing up. New York Avenue, which parallels another rail line, is still an eyesore, but the city has some things moving there as well. At the rate we're going, everything inside the beltway is going to be reclaimed.

And then there will be no affordable housing at all left in DC, and young people will have to go to Urbana, Haymarket and Stafford County anyhow. Young people should move quickly if they can.