Report a Comment

Perhaps the Height Act could wait until after the city (not just the core) reaches full build-out. Something that's great about the city is there's always a "next" neighborhood, and part of that is the Act. The study in the link showed that DC actually has about as much floor space as similarly sized cities, but it's spread out over a larger area (hence the "Oozing like batter" headline).

This fits better with the pro-Height-Act narrative than the anti-Height-Act narrative. It also means that, as DC grows in population, more neighborhoods will be subsumed by downtown. We're approaching the point where the DC-imposed limits need to be raised to the federal limit, but given the underutilized land around the city and in places like Prince George's, I think we could hold off on the federal limit for another decade at least.

The benefit would be a more European city in terms of development pattern. I'm not talking about the romantic low-lying character, I mean a more mixed-use pattern for the whole city, which takes pressure off transportation infrastructure by spreading out loads and promoting more walking.

by OctaviusIII on Apr 21, 2012 3:58 pm • link • report