November 15, 2004
Where yuppies fear to tread
They finally broke ground on the "$55 million" Anacostia light rail project the other day, opening a whole new area of town to denser development, or so proponents claim.
Yesterday, driving from the Home Depot back to Dupont on Rhode Island Avenue, I noted that the inevitable course of gentrification led down Rhode Island and Florida Avenues right to LeDroit Park, now a tangle of beat-up houses and gas stations. One of my compatriots asked me if it was possible for the entire city to be eaten up, going east and south block by block, entirely by yuppies. I said that I didn't think so, given that there are only so many young people who don't care about the quality of the public schools.
Right now, the trend is for recent college graduates to get their jollies in town for a few years before settling somewhere farther out they can live cheaply and begin working on that all-important 401(k) before the little brats eat up all their disposable income. I like the fact that I can walk to the 9:30 Club, Black Cat and Brickskeller from my apartment, but that means a bit less when keg deposits give way to wedding registries.
So there is a natural limit to the gains that can be made from making a city "cool" without suburban-quality public education and housing projects. If the Anacostia light rail is designed to alleviate traffic and move people more efficiently between Bolling, Metro and points in between, then go ahead. But if this is a shiny new trolley designed to lure the Eastern Market boom clear across the river, then they've got another thing coming.
Posted by rj3 at November 15, 2004 9:13 PM
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Tracked on November 15, 2004 11:13 PM