In 2020, we’ll be emphasizing lenses of equity and sustainability

Greater Greater Washington has always centered around “urbanism” and, specifically, we write about housing, transportation, and public policy in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. We’ve always seen equity and sustainability as fundamental elements of urbanism, but in the coming year, we’re doing a few things to make this explicit.

First, we’re adding them to a formal definition of our content philosophy for the publication, with this article right now. We’re committing that for all of our work, we’ll endeavor to factor in equity and sustainability as “lenses” over everything we do. Some articles will be more overtly connected to equity and/or sustainability, but we always want to at least think about how those two concepts apply to whatever we’re writing about or advocating on.

Second, we’re recruiting teams of “equity reviewers” and “sustainability reviewers.” We’re looking for people with knowledge and/or background in either of these. Each person will take one day of the week (i.e. one Wednesday equity reviewer, one Wednesday sustainability reviewer, etc.) and for any articles that come in that day, we’ll send them over for input. We’re looking for people to help us detect any blind spots or identify ways articles can potentially refer to connections with equity and sustainability.

You can apply for this and other volunteer opportunities here.

All of this, we hope, will be part of a general initiative this year to do more to explain to readers and the public exactly what GGWash stands for. When are we objective journalists and when are we advocates? (The answer is that we have two parts of the organization, one of each, but that’s not immediately evident if you come to the website!) What issues do we have stances on, and what issues don’t we? When are writers speaking for GGWash, and when for themselves? We’d like to do more to make all of this clear.

Of course, we welcome your feedback and involvement in this process.

What we mean by equity

by Ron Thompson

Like most cities and towns across the country, DC is marred by generations of racism, classism, and the inequities that come with de jure and de facto discrimination. Adjacent areas of Maryland and Virginia share in this history, segregating people from opportunity on the basis of race and class; they — just like the city which gives them life —– reflect the inequality that was borne out of slavery, Jim Crow, and flight from the inner city.

We see this history play out today in public meetings on new development, in the width of streets, in neighborhoods divided by interstate highways, or in the quality of transit service. There is no room to forget the history of our region. Washington has seen growth that was unimaginable for many of its residents two decades ago, turning neighborhoods that had been pummeled throughout the later half of the twentieth century into vibrant, bustling hubs of activity. But there have been clear negative externalities to this growth.

The District, like many cities, is in the throes of an affordability crisis, forcing people to find housing farther away from activity centers. Those hit hardest by an astronomically higher cost of living are people of color, particularly African Americans and Latinos. This is not just market forces at work; historic prejudices and discrimination created a built enviornment which had disproportinantly negative impacts on people of color.

Housing discrimination is the most visible form of this sort of discrimination, but it is inextricably tied to inequities in transportation. The interstate highway system enabled white flight. Investments in roads over transit came at the detriment of those too poor to afford a car. More and more single-occupancy vehicles lengthened commute times, added air pollution, increased traffic fatalities and injuries, and exarcerbated climate change. Who is hit the hardest by all this? The poor and people of color.

In the District, Ward 8, the city’s poorest and predominantly Black ward, has the highest share of traffic fatalities and injuries even though it has a lower rate of car ownership than other wards. As poverty becomes more suburbanized, it is imperative that we look to Maryland and Virginia as well to not only create communities that shed the 20th century’s shameful housing tradition, but also the transportation priorities of yesteryear.

People — knowingly and unknowingly — perpetuate systemic inequities which have externalities well beyond someone’s block. Through our publication and our advocacy, we seek to create conversations and affect policies that will advance equity: corrective, reparative action that seeks to undue centuries of harm against marginalized communities. In the new year, we hope to be bold in our commitment to a form of urbanism that is more inclusive and equitable.

What we mean by sustainability

by Kate Jentoft-Herr

The frightening reality is that our climate is changing. The first month of 2019 set 33 records for highest temperatures ever recorded, the summer was the hottest on record for the northern hemisphere, and the last week of December saw temperatures at least 10° F warmer than the historic average. We have just wrapped up a decade with some of the most destructive and frequent extreme weather events in living memory.

After over two centuries of reliance on fossil fuels for energy, our planet has reached a tipping point. Scientists say we have less than 10 years to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions or we risk catastrophic climate change that will either kill millions or billions; it’s not just about bad weather.

Locally, more frequent intense rainfall and flash floods and rising sea levels will inundate areas like Historic Anacostia, the Wharf and Navy Yard, Old Town Alexandria, and parts of the National Mall, while rising temperatures will create more risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke. These represent major threats to the livability or our region, especially for our low income residents who are least likely to be able to move out of the path of extreme weather and most likely to live in homes with poor ventilation and no air conditioning — a major equity issue.

Currently, in the United States, transportation emissions are the leading cause of climate change. Unfortunately, many experts focus on solutions like switching to electric cars, which is not a sustainable solution. Even if every person who currently drives a car switched to an electric car today, we would still see traffic congestion, politicians promoting environmentally destructive road widening projects, and the geographic, economic, political, and social ramifications of sprawl. Not to mention the additional environmental costs of generating the electricity and manufacturing and replacing so many cars.

In order for a solution to be sustainable, it must address the root causes of the problem it aims to solve and provide a long term solution that goes beyond the immediate needs of the moment. For articles we publish, we want to know if the proposed solutions promote a long-term vision of a socially, economically and environmentally healthy community that will function for tomorrow’s residents as well as today’s.

Help us fulfill these commitments

We believe equity and sustainability are the two main challenges of our day, and hope you will also infuse them into whatever you do.

We also would welcome your help in bringing these to our own work. As above, you can volunteer to be a reviewer on equity or sustainability. You can write articles for us, either explicitly or implicitly about equity and/or sustianability. We also have many other volunteer opportunities, including reviewing posts for subject matter and helping with advocacy.

And, post your thoughts in the comments or get in touch!