Please welcome our new Associate Editor, Jonathan Neeley!

Greater Greater Washington is pleased to welcome Jonathan Neeley as our Associate Editor! As our one paid staff member, Jonathan will be editing posts from our excellent team of volunteer contributors. We asked him to introduce himself below.

Hi, readers! I’m Jonathan Neeley and I’m the new Associate Editor at Greater Greater Washington. I’m really, really excited to be here.

I’ve taken a somewhat unconventional path to GGW. My first foray into media was a blog about the sport of ultimate that I started in college. From there I took jobs writing and editing for the USA Ultimate magazine, an ultimate website called Skyd Magazine, and RISE UP, a company that makes coaching tutorial videos.

While it may lie a way off the beaten path, ultimate is where I first learned to pitch an editor, speak to a source, and develop a rapport with a contributor. It has also afforded me chances to travel the world doing what I love.

Besides my expertise in a less well-known sport, I cover planning and transportation in a monthly ANC 6B report for the Hill Rag, and I’ve done a good deal of writing about other issues facing DC for sites like DCist. I love investigating and shedding light on city dynamics because no matter how much you learn, it’s only natural to want to dig deeper.

That interest actually took root in my childhood. I grew up in Mechanicsville, Virginia, a suburb of Richmond. When my dad moved to Seattle after my parents split up, I wound up going to high school on the west coast. Even as a kid, I was struck by the stark difference between a place where cars are really the only way to get around and where the local government isn’t all that visible versus one where the bus could take me seemingly anywhere and the buildings downtown reached well into the sky.

It’s funny to look back on it this way, but my hour and a half Metro bus commute to school and the two hours it took me to get home aren’t just where I first fell in love with reading the newspaper — they’re why I get that transit matters to people.

You can ask David if you want to be sure, but I think he hired me because I know my way around the English language (I majored in Foreign Affairs and History at the University of Virginia, which basically means I got a degree in reading and writing) and I’m generally pretty prompt in responding to emails.

Now that I’m here, I’m really eager for the opportunity for frequent discussions about how our region is changing, and how those changes affect people. Transportation and city planning affect where and how people live, work, and play. They’re relevant to everyone whether they spend time reading about them or not.

Please welcome Jonathan to Greater Greater Washington! We are able to pay Jonathan thanks to all of your support — if you haven’t already, please contribute! And if you would like to submit an article for us to consider having Jonathan edit and run on GGW, check out our writing guidelines and get in touch at info@ggwash.org.