Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Congrats on being born somewhere but I'll never understand why people who live in the national capital of the most powerful nation on earth try to make it into a provincial town only for those born there. That's never been why DC exists.
Blame the war on terror for the influx of wealth to the area. Between 2000 and 2010, federal investment in the DC region increased from about $27 billion to $89 billion. It's on its way back down again.
Well... carpetbagger for one thing DC was much cheaper, the taxes were lower and there were way more authentic restaurants and clothing stores. I wouldn't expect an ignorant outsider to understand that though. You need to understand that every neighborhood was not some crime ridden Ghetto. DC had and still has some great middle -class black areas especially in NE and NW. Your lack of knowledge about the city is very telling. BTW you do realize that at this point the people that gentrification is affecting the most are middle-class Black families. Poor Black people have tons of public housing options and a Sh_Tload of low and moderate income housing to choose from. Gentrification is actually displacing many of the very people that any good city would want to retain. You clearly don't know anything about DC do you??? I bet you don't even own anything here.
Displacing them how per say. Is it through higher rents. Most middle class blacks I know in NE and NW own their own houses, and have for decades. I am not seeing them leaving, they are my neighbors. They are not being priced out or displaced by any means.
Who is being priced out is the renters who are not usually middle class, but basically poor or working class. That is what gentrification does, it prices out lower income renters, and creates barriers to home ownership for those who are not affluent. But those who owned houses before basically end up sitting on a valuable nest egg and cash out when they retire. And those subsidized houses...they are not as common as you think, waiting lists tend to dominate them. If they are moving out it is because they are making a profit doing so, and likely retiring on what they sell their house on.
With all that being said...The reason why DC appears on those list falls squarely on ward 7 and 8, which represent a large share of the cities violent crime while still representing just a minority of the population. The city would not even be on those lists if it were not for those two wards.
Most of the public housing is in Wards 7 and 8 which represents a large % of the districts violent crime rate considering it's population size relative to the rest of the district (42.2% to be exact, and more than half the homicides). In fact the districts violent crime rate would be about 777.6 per 100, 000, if it were not for these two wards...making it fairly low, and ranking it not to far from the Bay Area and below Boston. So when you throw up these lists, please understand...some of us actually have experience as data analysts to parse things on a deeper level. So the perception that outside of wards 7 and 8 the city is pretty safe is not some fiction that us gentrifying the city buy into, it is grounded in reality and data. A large city with the amenities DC has which falls between Boston and SF in terms of violent crime...people are going to be attracted too. The reality is as long as people avoid 7 and 8 that is exactly what DC offers. So please when you curse us carpetbaggers and gentry, and try to scare us with claims of danger...please realize we are not idiots. We are coming here for a reason. While you may lament the disappearance of DC of old...the reality is the city is changing for the better, and only two areas essentially are lagging behind and inflating DC's crime statistics as a result.
You are a crank because DC is changing and it is no longer the city it used to be.
Last edited by DistrictSonic; 12-31-2013 at 03:27 PM..
Reason: corrections
Well... carpetbagger for one thing DC was much cheaper, the taxes were lower and there were way more authentic restaurants and clothing stores. I wouldn't expect an ignorant outsider to understand that though. You need to understand that every neighborhood was not some crime ridden Ghetto. DC had and still has some great middle -class black areas especially in NE and NW. Your lack of knowledge about the city is very telling. BTW you do realize that at this point the people that gentrification is affecting the most are middle-class Black families. Poor Black people have tons of public housing options and a Sh_Tload of low and moderate income housing to choose from. Gentrification is actually displacing many of the very people that any good city would want to retain. You clearly don't know anything about DC do you??? I bet you don't even own anything here.
Be more specific about what your mean by "middle class". Also no one has a "right" to live somewhere just because it's where they grow up. People live where they can afford to. Supply and demand controls pricing.
Step up your game or get lost. That's how it works. You don't own the city you live in. Grow up dude.
And I don't see it stopping anytime soon either. DC is on its way to being one of the "great cities" in the U.S.
I hope DC continues to grow smartly. We need more infrastructure and housing in order to keep costs down and keep the people in the city limits. DC can't be a great city until thinking changes. That or NOVA just keeps taking spillage and tax revenue.
I hope DC continues to grow smartly. We need more infrastructure and housing in order to keep costs down and keep the people in the city limits. DC can't be a great city until thinking changes. That or NOVA just keeps taking spillage and tax revenue.
NoVa has a higher cost of living then DC does at this point. Contrary to popular belief new housing does not always decrease prices if demand is high. DC can grow smartly but that does not mean people are not going to be priced out of the market.
It's not spillage, it is growth in general. The DC metro area is estimated by the census and others to grow by 1.5 million new people. NoVa has already outpaced everybody on COL, Montgomery County and DC are not far behind. The only one lagging is Prince Georges County.
I hope DC continues to grow smartly. We need more infrastructure and housing in order to keep costs down and keep the people in the city limits. DC can't be a great city until thinking changes. That or NOVA just keeps taking spillage and tax revenue.
Dont worry the reason NOVA gets business is Virginia's southern race to the bottom strategy of giving subsidies to rich people and big business while letting them not pay taxes. The burden is shifted on the middle and lower class, and the state doesnt really get anything.
DC is doing fine. It is growing rapidly for a big city, and thriving. The last thing it needs to do is copy NOVA and be a generic, boring, mess.
NoVa has a higher cost of living then DC does at this point. Contrary to popular belief new housing does not always decrease prices if demand is high. DC can grow smartly but that does not mean people are not going to be priced out of the market.
It's not spillage, it is growth in general. The DC metro area is estimated by the census and others to grow by 1.5 million new people. NoVa has already outpaced everybody on COL, Montgomery County and DC are not far behind. The only one lagging is Prince Georges County.
Right the housing needs to outpace the demand. I see no winning scenario with the housing shortage that DC has right now. Also - I think it is spillage - look at FBI and CIA. They have huge numbers of workers and no real usable space in DC. It's lost opportunity be wise DC flat out doesnt have infrastructure.
Where did I post that someone was a racist on C-D. I really think that your reading comprehension skills leave a lot to be desired. Don't get mad because the facts don't lie. DC is one of the top 5 most dangerous cities in America and THAT'S A FACT!!! If you want to live in a safer place your home city of New York is still open for business. The truth hurts...
Top 5? Not trying to get involved in the back and forth between you and Collateral, but I just had to comment on this...After all, I had no idea that the DC of 2013 (Well, 2014 in a few hours) is as if not more violent than the likes of say Camden, Newark, Compton, Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, Gary, New Orleans, Detroit, Flint, Birmingham, Oakland, Stockton, Atlanta, Milwaukee, etc............DC is still in the top 50 of most dangerous cities in the country all the while continuing to see its crime rate drop overall, particularly for violent crime. But I think putting it in the Top 5 is just sort of uninformed and almost borderline sensationalist. I'm just sayin'.
We are number 46 overall using violent crime stats. In 2007 we were in the top 25, and the bad old DC used to be number 1. As I stated the only reason we are on the list at all is wards 7 & 8 at this point. So things have improved in most of DC. Dcnative6 has selectively used points to drum up fear. To say gentrification has not improved DC is being flipping moronic.
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
Top 5? Not trying to get involved in the back and forth between you and Collateral, but I just had to comment on this...After all, I had no idea that the DC of 2013 (Well, 2014 in a few hours) is as if not more violent than the likes of say Camden, Newark, Compton, Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, Gary, New Orleans, Detroit, Flint, Birmingham, Oakland, Stockton, Atlanta, Milwaukee, etc............DC is still in the top 50 of most dangerous cities in the country all the while continuing to see its crime rate drop overall, particularly for violent crime. But I think putting it in the Top 5 is just sort of uninformed and almost borderline sensationalist. I'm just sayin'.
Did you read the link? I didn't put DC in the top 5 the UCR from the FBI did. Facts are facts and if you look at the numbers from 2010 to 2013 I think you'll find that compared to cities of similar size crime in DC is very high. Trust me I've lived here my entire life and I'm telling you that it's way worst then you think. Pretty new buildings doesn't change poverty and joblessness. The numbers don't lie and I believe that the media has been underreporting crime if anything. BTW the 2013 numbers will be coming out soon and they are not going to be good. Total crime outside of Homicide is up in DC not down. You can't have out of control gentrification with a large poverty rate without having high crime it just doesn't work. People had better wake up there is no way DC will reach its full potential until it addresses poverty, crime and unemployment.
Annual Crime Totals 2007-2012
These statistics reflect official Index crime totals as reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. These totals may differ from the preliminary monthly statistics presented elsewhere on this Website for a variety of reasons, including late reporting, reclassification of some offenses, and discovery that some offenses were unfounded.
Last edited by DCNative6; 01-01-2014 at 11:43 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
