What do you think are GGWash’s best achievements?

Greater Greater Washington is working on some strategic planning, and in the spirit of our participatory and transparent culture, we want to both hear from readers and share our thinking with you. Today’s questions: what are GGWash’s important achievements recently, and over our 12 years?

I posed a survey to our staff, board, Editorial Board, and Advocacy Committee, which 21 people replied to. Preivously, I shared what people said about why they were part of GGWash. Here are two questions about looking back at the past.

First, What is one (or more) important GGWash achievement from the last year or two?

• Four people talked about our publication. Our move to add paid fellows and correspondents was a highlight a few mentioned; these programs have let us pay some people for writing, diversify our contributor pool, add geographic areas we weren’t able to cover as well with volunteers, and more.
• Organizational growth was another theme; One mentioned the organization’s financial stability and one, growing our board.
• Our move to emphasize lenses of sustainability and equity in all our work was a big theme, mentioned by three people. Two talked about elections, including coverage of the recent Montgomery County School Board race which, that respondent said, helped “avoid electing a white racist supremist who wanted to bring back segregation.”
• For many people, the specific achievement they noted was policy-related.
• On housing, people mentioned the DC Comprehensive Plan including winning passage of a new Framework Element, our “Comp Plan Book Club” to read the old plan, and “organization around public input.” Others talked about the coalition we assembled for this effort, another noted our support for the mayoral goal of building 36,000 new housing units, and one said we’d been able to be the “East coast brain capital of YIMBYism.”
• Several people also discussed transportation, including advocating for bus lanes and ped/bike safety, the “fare-free bus-to-rail transfer” which was proposed in WMATA’s first budget for this year, then passed in partial form by the board, and now is still policy but on hold because of the coronavirus’s effect on transit and economic downturn. Our work to create a coalition around equity in transportation was also mentioned by multiple people.

Over the years GGWash has existed, how has the region been better off because of it?

The next question in the survey looked farther back to our whole existence, and led to people thinking more broadly about the role of GGWash. Here are some key comments.

Several people said educating people was our best effect:

• “A better informed populace”
• “It’s profoundly important to give citizens a means of understanding how their environments are affected by policy”
• “Greater awareness” around development; “An important role as a news organization”
• “Crowd-source thoughtful perspectives … a platform to educate”
• “Really one of the few sources of local news”

A related theme was how people felt GGWash has influenced the public narrative around issues we discuss:

• “Influenced how other news outlets cover the issues”
• “Elevated the level [of] intelligence and nuance expected … raised the bar for … policy makers and advocates”
• “Brings attention to various urbanist issues that might otherwise be overlooked”
• “Pushed the conversation on housing and transportation needs. … Counterweight to the prevailing to the status quo”

Some talked about how we have brought people together. One said we “bring different parties to the table to have a constructive and productive conversation that results in actionable items,” and another, “helped the urbanist community find each other and find a collective voice.”

Others said GGWash’s effect was to activate people. “Our values have informed-citizen power” and “smarter eyes on urbanist policy in DC and surrounding counties holding decisionmakers accountable to just not be stupid or evil,” they said. GGWash was helpful in “giving civically engaged community members a platform to raise awareness.”

And finally, some effects were to bring about specific change. One said, “GGWash has pushed for key transit initiatives and housing policies that have held officials accountable.” And from another: “There wouldn’t be any solar panels in historic districts if not for GGWash!”

These responses span a number of different roles for GGWash. A couple of people specifically talked about this in their responses:

• “1) We educate people about issues they care about but don’t necessarily have the expertise to understand.
  2) We lobby effectively for good policy, both as a matter of course and as a balance for groups that lobby for bad policy.
  3) We provide urbanists with a community center.”
• “12+ years of evolving thought on urbanism documented on our site, and I think, now, we’re presenting an actual vision for what we can advocate for. We need to better figure out how to connect our base with our advocacy and explain how that cycle works.”

What do you think of these? What, to you, has been the way GGWash has been valuable to the Washington region over its 12-plus years of existence so far? What about recently? I’ll incorporate thoughts from the comments into any product that comes out of this effort. Thank you for being part of GGWash and whatever effects we’ve been able to bring (which, in almost all cases, are thanks to our community — that’s you!)