Anacostia's M. L. King Avenue-Progress and Challenges

On Martin Luther King Avenue SE

From email:

Wednesday December 19 7:00 p.m.
Anacostia's M. L. King Avenue-Progress and Challenges
@ Anacostia Community Museum 1901 Fort Place, S.E. Washington, D.C.

Karina Ricks of the District's Department of Transportation, Albert Hopkins of the Anacostia Economic Development Corporation, and Kalem Umrani, citizen activist, discuss the city's future plans to develop the Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue corridor and other parts of East of the River. For required reservations, call (202) 633-4844.
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I will be out of town doing some consulting so I'll miss this unfortunately. It's also an opportunity to check out this exhibit: East of the River: Continuity and Change.

And for some of my writing on Anacostia, this is from a blog entry from January 2007:

... are really no different than the response of Ward 8 residents to the Ward 8 business establishment's support of trickle down development proposed via the Poplar Point soccer stadium development. See the Post article "In Ward 8, Residents Voice Skepticism of Poplar Point Plan," subtitled "Many Say Stadium, Hotel and Housing Will Displace Poor." From the article:

Among the features mentioned yesterday were a 27,000-seat stadium for D.C. United, a hotel and conference center, 2,000 housing units and a 70-acre park, said Skip McKoy, vice president of the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., a quasi-independent city agency. The plans are tentative, McKoy said, subject to change as officials receive more feedback. But even before the crowd of several hundred people was invited to break into discussion groups, residents began objecting to elements of the plan.

They said they feared the high-priced development would keep them from benefiting from the jobs, housing and other opportunities on the Poplar Point site. "This is gentrification at its best, the restoration of urban property by the rich that will result in the displacement of lower-income people," said D'Angelo Scott, a neighborhood activist, drawing applause from the crowd. "All the billions of dollars that will come from the stadium and the hotel -- is any of it going back to the low-income people who might disappear?"

Another man drew more applause when he loudly yelled, "Who plays soccer?" as city officials were explaining the stadium's benefits.

While regular readers know that I rail against what I call the tyranny of neighborhood parochialism, residents are making good points about cui bono (who benefits?).

Now I have written plenty about Anacostia, for example these blog entries:
-- Enclave development won't "save" Anacostia
-- Arson as a(nother) redevelopment strategem
-- Poor Anacostia, so far from God, and so close to the United States (Government and the Washington Post)
-- Office buildings won't "save" Anacostia
-- Falling up -- Accountability and DC Community Development Corporations

How can you be shocked that people like Councilmember Barry favor the stadium plan, after all he set the stage for the success of the Growth Machine 20+ years ago.

If you haven't read the book Dream City, particularly Chapter 4 on construction and development, you have no business reporting on the subject, or advocating on the subject. After you read that book, then read "City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place" by Molotch, and you'll begin to understand how things work.

Until then, you're a baby in diapers. To get potty trained check out this blog entry which references a review of Dream City from the Washington Monthly.

Also see these blog entries:
-- If You Don't Get it you don't get it
-- Unholy alliances: The Growth Machine, simple-minded leftist folks, and the Comprehensive Plan

Read this!

Update. Of course, now Ward 8 residents believe that soccer and the original McFarlane proposal, produced with the support of key Anacostia organizations, is inextricably necessary to Anacostia improvement.

Now that's co-optation at its best!

See:

-- The Promise of Poplar Point (Washington Post)
-- Marion Barry, Soccer Maven (Marc Fisher, Washington Post)
-- Poplar Point Coalition Aims to Go Around Fenty (DCist)