So which is it gentrified or war zone?
“Gentrified or warzone?”
About 75 percent gentrified and trending up fast. 75 percent may be a low estimate.
People who have not seen H Street N.E. in ten years or more would not recognize it. Much of it has been entirely rebuilt and has gone from old two story brick buildings to modern mid rise structures with ground floor retail and mixed use above. Some surviving older structures remain as a ghost of what was. A few of these still look shabby, but these are just waiting for the wrecking ball, once enough of the adjoining buildings have been acquired and folded into the redevelopment package.
Capitol Hill has gentrified pretty solidly down to H. There is not a single block on the Capitol Hill side that you would need to worry about until you get east of 15th. Then you get into Rosedale and Kingman Terrace, which are rapidly improving but are still a bit transitional. (These are in the swale of low ground between Capitol Hill and the Arboretum, which is on the next hill to the north. This used to be law, swampy, flood prone land and developed much later, with a much different neighborhood history.) North of H, the area between H and Florida Ave/Gallaudet is pretty good, probably about where Capitol Hill was 15 years ago. Immediately to the east of that, Trinidad and Carver Langdon are flipping but are not as far along.
The whole area is too close in not to gentrify. Topographically H Street is the northern boundary of Capitol Hill, with the area between H and New York Avenue beginning to acquire an identity of its own. The railroad tracks and the very large rail yards run along NY Avenue and are a major barrier to movement. That will become the real boundary of “Capitol Hill extended.” The Arboretum, Mt. Olivet Cemetery and the Gallaudet campus form a defacto greenbelt along NY Avenue all the way out to the river. The housing pressure is immense and this entire area is fast transitioning.
North of the railyards and NY Avenue is booming as well. It’s a story of micro habitats, but there are a lot of people here who are operating on the basis of ancient and outdated information. The good areas are all improving. They now encircle and are squeezing out the problem areas. Washington’s affordable housing is now in far northeast and close-in PG County. It won’t be affordable much longer. The whole Anacostia River corridor is coming back to life, from College Park and Hyattsville on down.