For most of my professional career, one consistent societal issue has been gentrification. Even in the depths of the Great Recession, when housing prices were collapsing, gentrification seemed unstoppable. And while there has been a lot to like about the urban renaissance that has occurred as affluent young professionals have poured into urban centers, there has been nothing good about the displacement, the very visible inequalities between old-timers and newcomers, or the racial and ethnic tensions this has exacerbated.
Washington, D.C
Opinion | Gentrification is a problem for cities — especially when it ends
So politicians, policy wonks and pundits have all spent a lot of time agonizing over what to do about gentrification. They have called for reforms to permitting and zoning rules to make it easier for developers to build new housing, or for subsidies to the people being priced out, or both. In hindsight, we spent surprisingly little time worrying about what would happen to cities without gentrification.
Yet here we are in 2024, and I’m much less worried about gentrification than I am about what you might call gentrification whiplash: the uncomfortable conditions that result when a headlong rush into urban real estate suddenly stops, or even goes into reverse.
This now seems like a real possibility in many places, including my own beloved D.C., which is beset with three major issues at once. Demand for office space has cratered thanks to remote work. Demand for residential real estate has shifted outward to the suburbs, as proximity to the office has become less valuable. And crime keeps soaring to new heights; in 2023, homicide hit 20-year highs in D.C., while car theft reached levels not seen since 2007.
If this trend continues, people who have money and options will do what they did in the middle of the 20th century: decamp for places where they don’t have to spend so much time worrying about being robbed or shot.
Yet the response of my local officials has been curiously lackadaisical. Although violence has been a growing problem since 2020, arrests in 2022 were down by almost half from 2019, prosecutions had fallen even further, the D.C. police’s operating budget shrank by almost 13 percent and the number of officers was falling toward its lowest in about 50 years. Only this past fall did Mayor Muriel E. Bowser finally push through a package of reforms aimed at reducing crime.
So let us add a fourth problem to my city’s woes: city officials who have for years been collecting a sort of hidden subsidy from gentrification, which made their jobs easier in many ways — and stands to make the whiplash worse. We are facing the biggest urban crisis in 50 years with politicians who are used to playing on Easy Mode, which is the policy equivalent of driving without a seat belt.
For the past two decades, if you were overseeing a reasonably successful city like Washington, your tax base kept improving no matter what you did, as richer people replaced poorer ones. In 2006, when I moved to D.C., total tax revenue, net of dedicated taxes, was $4.2 billion (about $6.3 billion in today’s dollars). In 2022, the city collected approximately $8.6 billion ($8.8 billion in 2023 dollars). Of course, the population has increased since 2006 — but not by 40 percent.
Meanwhile, the people who were moving in needed less from the government than the people who were being forced out. The newcomers didn’t need subsidized health care or child care, or the city to arrange a tutor for their kid struggling with math. They were also much less likely to suffer from difficulties associated with poverty, including substance abuse and untreated mental illness — or to generate associated problems such as crime and child abuse.
We frequently talk about the government learning to do more with less, but gentrifying cities got to do less with more: It doesn’t take as much money and ingenuity to educate or police the prosperous middle class as it does to provide those services to a marginalized community, so government didn’t have to be nearly as good at many of its jobs. Yet because the population was less needy, it actually looked as if those services were improving rapidly, if you scanned crime statistics or test scores.
Of course, gentrification didn’t actually solve many of those problems; it just displaced them, while tipping some of the most vulnerable onto the streets. But politicians appeared to be solving them, creating an illusion of competence that might have fooled even the politicians themselves.
This went on for so long that people took it for granted, voters and politicians alike. We got progressive mayors, progressive district attorneys and progressive council members who pursued their laudable goals on the assumption that no matter what they did, crime would keep falling and public coffers would keep overflowing.
Now this illusion is punctured. Ever-increasing urban housing demand cannot be taken for granted, nor can any of the benefits that come with it. City officials can no longer count on gentrification to export their problems to another Zip code; they will have to get better at actually solving them.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
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You can learn more and book your table here.
Washington, D.C
DC Navy Yard shooting: What happened in Washington? ‘Targeted attack’ feared as scary visuals emerge
A shooting reportedly took place in Washington DC’s Navy Yard on Thursday, and visuals from the scene were shared online. Independent journalist Nick Sortor shared a clip saying “Heavily armed US Capitol Police officers are RACING to a reported shooting in the vicinity of a high-ranking US government official in Washington, DC’s Navy Yard.”
Sortor noted that US Capitol Police were rushing to the scene. He noted that the black SUV seen in the clip was an armored Chevrolet Suburban which was used by members of the Congress and members of the President’s cabinet. Sortor further reported that it was ‘unclear’ if the attack was targeted.
The alleged shooter is reportedly not in custody yet and police are searching the area. “I personally witnessed that official be EXTRACTED via undercover Capitol Police officers, protected by uniformed officers carrying long rifles. I will not name the official without their express permission, as I don’t want to dox their home. Other officers can be seen sweeping the area for evidence like shell casings,” Sortor further said.
Also Read | Towson University: Shooting reports on campus in Maryland spark fears; first details
The DC Police Department and the US Capitol Police are yet to comment on the matter.
Navy Yard shooting: Reactions and fears
Several people wondered about the politicians who live in the Navy Yard neighborhood. Grok, the AI chatbot, helped out, saying “Publicly reported ones include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—she’s been living in a Navy Yard apartment for years. The area’s also drawn younger congressional staffers and some Trump admin folks in the past for the modern housing near the river. Can’t list “all” though—most officials’ exact homes aren’t public for obvious security reasons.”
It added “No, no current Trump cabinet members are publicly reported as living in DC’s Navy Yard neighborhood. Several senior officials (SecState Marco Rubio, SecDef Pete Hegseth, AG Pam Bondi, ex-DHS Sec Kristi Noem) have moved into secure military housing at Fort McNair or Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling for safety. Noem previously rented in Navy Yard but relocated. Exact private residences aren’t public record.”
To be sure, the name of the official has not been released yet, so Grok’s answers are only guesses based on public record or past information. One wild claim was made on X that the shooting ‘targeted Donald Trump’. However, this came from an unverified profile and no corroboration was provided. President Trump is not publicly known to be in the Navy Yard area, rather remaining in the White House when he is in Washington.
The news of the DC Navy Yard shooting comes days after a takeover by a teen mob. The unruly incident saw four teenagers charged with disorderly conduct, reports on April 12 noted.
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