Here are some of our favorite David Alpert articles from over the years

On February 8, 2008, our former executive director and founder David Alpert wrote this about the region:

Urban centers and walkable suburbs in America are experiencing a renaissance, including the Washington, DC region. Unfortunately, too many people are forced to leave great neighborhoods to find affordable housing or good schools. If people want to live in single-family homes, they certainly may. But everyone should have the choice to live in an apartment or townhouse in a walkable, safe, livable neighborhood.

This idea of what Greater Washington could be was the birth of Greater Greater Washington: the website, the mission, and the organization. GGWash was also the place where David honed his skills as a writer, penning pieces that sometimes led to action on issues that had lain dormant, and other times brought on a tide of spirited comments. While the voice of GGWash has transformed over the years, David’s writing has been a consistent part of who we are.

David stepped down from GGWash earlier this year, but his voice and contributions to the region live on. As 2020 comes to an end and we look to the future, our contributors, volunteers, and staff shared their favorite David Alpert articles from over the years.

Brian Goggin, a contributor and elections committee member, chose as his favorite David’s article on equity, saying: “This article is one of my favorites of David’s, and I think it explains well why equity, more than trains, buses, or apartment buildings, is central to urbanism.”

Kate Jentoft-Herr, GGWash’s Program and Community Coordinator, added another vote to the equity article, saying it moved her to make a fundamental career change:

This is the article that made me want to work at GGWash. It is such a thoughtful, eloquent examination of the ways that power and identity are wrapped into our daily lives, both personally and professionally. The way David works through a lot of tensions with the reader and keeps it informative and personal is so powerful and it speaks so much to the culture of the organization David created here that we ran this.

Contributor David Cranor voted for this classic article featuring WMATA fantasy maps.

Nena Perry-Brown, an editorial board member, says this about an article about historic preservation:

When I think of GGWash, I think of articles like this one: accessible, explicatory, thorough, and questioning. The subject matter also remains relevant and has broader implications for issues like displacement and the affordable housing shortage.

Rachel Taylor, another editorial board member, says this about an article unpacking our style guide:

I think it’s intriguing to get a look behind the scenes into the inner workings of various things, publications’ style guides included. Especially when it comes to more niche terminology that might not be covered in a more general style guide, like the AP Stylebook. Additionally, I like how input or feedback from readers is requested regarding the style guide terms here, allowing them to have a bit of a say in the terminology the publication uses.

For contributor and edit board member Dan Reed, David’s article defending an op-ed piece about Marc Elrich exemplifies how our founder has never been one to shy away from thorny and important debates.

Hands down, this is my favorite David post, where he stands up to then-MoCo executive candidate Marc Elrich after he accused David of lying about his positions - but also talks about wealth inequality and privilege and gets a little vulnerable. While it may not have changed the election, I do think it helped shape the narrative about Marc and his toxic views. People know who Marc really is now because of David’s post.

Alex Baca, who manages our policy work on housing and now transportation, pulled this out of the archives:

“A taxi, Leon Swain, and me,” which is nearly 13 years old, which means I am just a few years from perishing, was the first blog post that generated a lot of conversation about something urbanist-y, both in the comments and on other blogs (which are now mostly dead). It’s an important moment in GGWash history, and reading it now makes me really appreciate David’s tenacity for following minutiae to its end. This sounds tedious, but it is really the basis of GGWash’s approach to advocacy (which I hope I have taken up effectively): relentlessly looking for ways in which public systems can be improved, and viewing even the smallest of experiences as an access point to those systems.

These are just a few examples of how David’s writing — more than 400 posts over more than 12 years — has impacted our community. David’s words excited us, challenged us, and moved us. As we look to a future with new leadership, we at GGWash hope to carry on that legacy.