Posts by Stephen Hudson — Contributor
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DC’s affordable housing fund is falling further behind
Washington, DC’s Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF) does not have enough funding to keep up with rising costs, according to a new report from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. The report states that higher construction costs mean that the HPTF has lost about a third of its purchasing power since 2015. Keep reading…
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Sprawl doesn’t just hurt cities, it hurts farmers too, a local report shows
We don’t always think about agriculture in the context of urbanism, but it is an important part of our region. We should understand the role it plays, and how it too is impacted by things like zoning and sprawl. Keep reading…
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What are your urbanist New Year’s resolutions?
With 2019 under way, lots of people are trying to follow through on their New Year’s resolutions. In the GGWash community, a number of folks have made urbanist resolutions this year, with the goal of improving their community in various ways. Keep reading…
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They did the math: Amazon will barely impact our already supercharged housing market
Researchers have found that the influx of Amazon employees will not significantly affect the housing supply, though the region’s housing costs will likely remain some of the most expensive in the country. That's a key finding from George Mason University’s Fuller Institute, which published a study that looks at the impact of Amazon’s HQ2 on the Washington region’s housing. Keep reading…
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We need 100,000+ new homes in the coming decades to meet our regional shortage
As the second round of debate on DC’s Comprehensive Plan draws near, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) has released a report highlighting exactly how much new housing the region needs in the coming decades: 115,000 additional homes above current projections by 2045, or about 25,600 total new units per year. Keep reading…
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Many of DC’s new protected bike lanes are in Southwest
Several new protected bikeways have opened in Southwest DC in recent months. At a length of around 0.75 miles, the new lanes make up most of the 0.94 miles of bike-only lanes installed this year, all in Southwest. Keep reading…
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DC’s largest developer is getting into affordable housing
As our region grapples with an affordable housing shortage and the continued loss of low-cost housing, a private developer and non-profit organization have started a new initiative to address the problem — and to do so without public subsidies. Keep reading…
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What’s wrong with parking in bike lanes? A lot, actually
The Washington Post recently published a letter to the editor that argues parking in a bike lane isn’t really a problem. Though anecdotally common, this sort of blasé attitude towards traffic safety puts bicyclists — and other road users — at risk. Keep reading…
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DC’s new tunnel is keeping billions of gallons of sewage out of the Anacostia
After years of work, the Anacostia River Tunnel is starting to see results. Since the end of construction on the massive tunnel project in March, it has already prevented billions of gallons of sewage from flowing into the Anacostia River. Keep reading…
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This is a better way to look at how built up our region is
Population density is an important measurement of how built up urban areas are, but like all averages, it has its drawbacks. To better describe how people live in urban areas, I looked at an alternative measurement called Population Weighted Density. Here’s what it means for the Washington region. Keep reading…