Greatest Greatest Hits: Your favorite articles of 2020

Oh, 2020. What can I say about you? It has been unlike any other year. When can you recall living through the uncertainty of a global pandemic, while navigating the fear and anger of witnessing Black bodies discarded, and simultaneously witnessing a world finally try to reckon with the realities of social injustice?

How do you continue to write and edit important and necessary articles about the region when two of the biggest stories around the world are impacting your life just like they are everyone else’s? This entire year has been about upheaval, change, and thankfully hope.

For me, my hope resides in the ability to work every day with so many brilliant people, and engage with volunteers, and a community that cares about making this region greater for everyone.

I am also thankful for all the amazing writers that put their time and talent into creating compelling journalism. In 2020, while we navigated internal and external change, we published 984 urbanist articles including 247 Breakfast links, a heap of maps, and lots of questions about the future of transit (and of course a few articles for the train nerds). This was done mostly by a pool of talented volunteer writers in addition to our correspondents, and now staff writer.

This year our coverage widened a bit. Yes, you all loved our coverage on transit, bicycling and housing, but we also had some interesting articles that touched on protests, public spaces and health. We also had lots of coverage on local elections in the region, which was very popular.

We were able to write about how the pandemic has affected us all, as well as continue to expand our conversations and actions around equity and sustainability.

Will Schick worked with our urbanist journalism fellowship, which sadly ended this year. He wrote about a variety of subjects, from how climate change and COVID-19 could be impacting IPAs, to how Ward 8 Woods found a new purpose during the pandemic.

Also in 2020, Nena Perry-Brown joined us as a correspondent writing about the redevelopment of Greenleaf Gardens, a project through Lenfest Institute & Facebook Journalism Project’s Community Network. Some of her most popular articles were How public housing was destined to fail, and Greenleaf Gardens was part of the birth of DC’s urban renewal projects.

Alex Holt and Wyatt Gordon, continued to help us deepen our coverage of the region in Baltimore/Maryland and Richmond/Virginia, respectively. Just a couple of Alex’s popular pieces include Why is it so hard to get to Annapolis by transit? and Could Maryland finally be ready to replace Baltimore’s oldest rail tunnel? Meanwhile you really liked Wyatt’s pieces Why is one of Richmond’s hottest neighborhoods missing so many sidewalks? and Richmond plans to reconnect three communities to create a new mega-park.

We are also excited that Libby Solomon joined our team as a writer/editor for GGWash. She hit the ground running with popular pieces like Spotted on car-free Beach Drive: thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians, 629 dogs, one cat, and one bird, and Why do people keep treating Slow Streets signs like the Kool-Aid Man treats walls? Libby has also been pivotal in helping us continue our coverage of Tysons.

Below are our 20 top-read and 20 top-commented articles of 2020. We will be reposting some of our most-read pieces between Christmas and New Years’ (plus a special treat).

Thank you all for your support. GGWash would not and could not be here without you.

Here are our 20 most-read articles from 2020

Here are our top-commented posts from 2020