U-Haul . . . isn't that the truth! How the company has managed to retain its brand value this long is amazing.

by ah on Aug 5, 2009 9:22 am • link • report

Why the snark about U-Haul and Hertz getting into the car-sharing business? It will be great for Zipcar to have some competition. Maybe they will lower their prices, for one thing. I wonder if DDOT will bend over backwards to provide other operators with on-street spaces?

by Paul on Aug 5, 2009 9:34 am • link • report

Ugh, I really hate those Disneyfied trolleys. I nice little bus would do the job just fine and probably be more cost effective. I say this as a card carrying classicist, but I can't take such real kitsch.

by Boots on Aug 5, 2009 9:46 am • link • report

the County's penchant for developing sprawl outside the Metro area entirely

be nice if we could figure out a way to start talking about urban growth boundaries (UGBs) -- they're all the rage in Oregon, and seem crucial to stopping sprawl.

by Peter Smith on Aug 5, 2009 9:47 am • link • report

The Snark About U-Haul. A short one act play.

Me: I'm here for my truck
U-Haul: Good news, we're giving you a much larger truck than the one you ordered at the same price.
Me: But I don't want a larger truck, the gas is going to kill me. Can I have the one I reserved?
U-Haul: We don't have any of those.
Me: But I reserved it.
U-Haul: [What can I do look]

by David C on Aug 5, 2009 10:03 am • link • report

I'll second the point David C made. If U-Haul were to run a char sharing program it would mean you'd specifically request a mini and they'd specifically give you a Hummer.

Also, I think it's great to use goats as lawn mowers, but it also seems like greenwashing. If all you need to do to make the construction of a new highway bypass "green" is to hire some goats, we have truly defined the term "green" out of usefulness.

Finally, M.V. Jantzen needs to start charging for his photography. I swear his stuff represents at least 50% of all DC blog photography these days...

by Reid on Aug 5, 2009 10:10 am • link • report

The first sentence of the hipster article makes it clear that the target is "hipsters, post-hipsters or quasi-hipsters who moved into Columbia Heights several years ago for the grit and the cheap rent and the proximity to the Wonderland Ballroom." This is a well-defined group of people (at least after excluding the hipster qualification, although I suspect that everyone who complains that the word hipster is ill-defined is just worried about either being labeled one or not being labeled one), and I certainly think that many of them deserve to be gently mocked - especially those who regularly express their disdain for suburbs and their residents. I didn't read any of the sprawling generalizations that bloggers are clamoring to see who can denounce the loudest.

I'm sure everyone (or at least every white yuppie like me) has met a few (or a few dozen) people who will breathlessly tell you about the shooting that happened a block from their apartment, and then wait for some kind of expression of how edgy their lives must be to live in such a place. Of course, in my case, they spend all day working in the suburbs, and an hour driving (driving a car! how suburban ... maybe it's at least a smart) each way, so there's not much time left for drinking PBR or doing anything intentionally ironic.

by Suburbanite X on Aug 5, 2009 10:12 am • link • report

If U-carshare is anything like a real U-haul, you'll have to go to the most god-awful depressing industrial wasteland part of town to pick up the car. And it will take half and hour.

Honestly, zip car is amazing. My card broke the other day and they changed my account number, got me a new card, and had me in my reserved car in like five minutes. We'd be lucky to have a city government that's even half as efficient.

And don't forget that Zip Car already has serious competition keeping them in check: private car ownership. But if U-carshare can do it effectively, that's wonderful.

by Daniel on Aug 5, 2009 10:25 am • link • report

Jantzen takes a lot of great photographs and he makes them available for use. A killer combination.

by David C on Aug 5, 2009 10:28 am • link • report

For the record, I have no problem with competition to Zipcar. Competition is good. Choice is good. It's just that U-Haul has a record of terrible customer service, overbooking trucks, dangerous vehicles, shoddy maintenance, "losing" evidence and forgetting facts when sued, and more.

Hertz, on the other hand, is a competent company and it makes sense for them to try car sharing.

by David Alpert on Aug 5, 2009 10:33 am • link • report

Reid, according to the article the goats are employed to help protect the bog turtles more then any other reason. Of course foregoing the road in the fisrt place would have protected the threatened spieces of turtles even more....

by Bianchi on Aug 5, 2009 10:35 am • link • report

Zipcar isn't the only game in town everywhere. For instance: although Zipcar is in Vancouver and Toronto, it has no presence in Quebec, where a company called Communauto offers services in 4 cities. Wikipedia has a list of other carsharing services in North America.

FYI, I looked at Communauto while recently in Montreal: it seemed to have much higher up-front costs and a more complicated pricing system than Zipcar.

by Gavin Baker on Aug 5, 2009 11:03 am • link • report

however ill defined "hipster" is, you have to admit that there is a LOT of hipocracy (dressed up as "irony") coming out of people who could be defined as such.

i'm glad the article has pointed out that that which they claim to destain about the 'burbs: "ohhhh ALL those horrible, evil corporate big box stores and tacky, unhealthy, soul crushing franchise restaurants, and uniform, trend-following national clothing chains...why would ANYONE live like that? i'm sooooooooooooooo glad they're alllllllllll the way out in crystal city and other bland suburbs like that".

...well all that's now across their street. and they like it. a lot, apparently.

I've been saying for AGES now that the type quoted above is generally an under-25 recent college grad who grew up in some suburb somewhere, went to school in either a mega-suburb type college town (State College, PA, anyone) or a quaint little libral arts college town. To make up for being so uncool for the past 22 or so years, they move to the cool, edgy neighborhood, obstencably to "save money on rent because the neighborhood is so rough" (though note: every single last person I know who moved to Columbia Heights in the past 4 years lives in a higher-rent apartment than I do in Old Town Alexandria). Then, to ease the self-loathing of being a suburban-bred yokel just off the turnip truck, they put down everything and everyone who isn't as "urban cool" as they are.

Then a problem arises: the suburbs follow them to their edgy urban neighborhoods. They go with what they know (Target DOES make life easy...who cares about supporting local busniesses when it's so much work), and next thing you know--Columbia Heights is Crystal City. With a lower population density. And higher rent. And more crime. And a longer commute (depending on what part of the DC you're commuting to, obviously).

As for me personally, I DO hate the big box stores. I don't like that they put mom and pops out of busniess, I don't like that their labor standards are appalingly low and I think that (generally) their products (particularly clothing) are of too poor a quality for the price. I wouldn't choose to live near any because they're eyesores (the Potomac Yards ones are close enough as it is)--let alone across the street from one! But somehow I'm the surbabanite, not the girl who goes to Target 4 times a week, sometimes just because she's bored!

by Catherine on Aug 5, 2009 11:21 am • link • report

Bolt Bus is great and so is Megabus, I've ridden them both. I use BusJunction to find tickets, it works really well.

by Shari on Aug 5, 2009 11:52 am • link • report

Nowadays, itÂ’s much hipper to hate hipsters than to be one. Even the hipsters hate hipsters.

Coming from what is possibly the least cool neighborhood in DC, the use of the word ‘hipster’ is totally overused and utterly meaningless at this point, like calling someone a “fascist.” The hipsters are the new yuppies, preppies, and pinkos. Are people following trends? Obviously. Is that a terrible thing? Not unless you’re obsessed with being cool or self-hating and resentful.

Hating hipsters and calling hipsters is a lazy, stupid argument. Nobody knows what the hell a hipster is, nobody can agree on a definition, and it’s used against people who are “cool,” or “lazy,” or “ironic.” The word has always been derisive, based on disdainful Manhattanite arrogance.

HereÂ’s an idea: anyone who uses the term hipster in an argument automatically loses. If thatÂ’s all you got, then you got nothing.

by цarьchitect on Aug 5, 2009 12:04 pm • link • report

Completely off topic suggestion for Lynda.

Life expectancy estimates for Washington, DC. We all know that DC is the worst in this regard. Particularly hard hit are African American males.

But what about the rest of the population: African American females (married, married with children, single, single with children) as well as white females in the same categories, and males (white, black, Latino, Vietnamese).

Do the low LE estimates for black males hold across the board for everyone else? Where can we get this information?

I would LOVE to see detailed breakouts.

Thanks.

by Jazzy on Aug 5, 2009 12:07 pm • link • report

In general I think Tsarchitect sort of hit most of the points I would have hit. Columbia Heights hasn't really had a meaningful hipster population, in the sense of what that word used to mean (when it had an actual definition), in a few years. The "hipsters" are all in Bloomingdale/Eckington/Ledroit Park or Petworth at this point. And even if the article had been about how most of the hipsters are leaving or have left Columbia Heights because of the gentrification and the rent hikes that accompanied it, it still would have been a dumb article stating an obvious point.

by Nate on Aug 5, 2009 1:23 pm • link • report

Re: WASHPOST hipsters.
Washpost wonders why it is losing readers when it continues to pedal simplistic garbage.

by SJE on Aug 5, 2009 1:41 pm • link • report

So now the evil "big box" stores have lower labor standards then the angelic "mom and pops?" Give me a break.

The workplace rules in a mom and pop usually go something like this. You work when we say you work, you miss a shift or don't like anything about working here, you leave. We pay you when we can, if things are tight, the check might be late a few days or may bounce, tough. If you get hurt on the job, you are fired. The owner's cousin just moved into town and needs a job? Guess what, you are out and he is in. Holiday rush? No problem, the owner's wife and kids will be forced to work 20 hour days for free rather then give you an hour of overtime. Trust me, I worked in a few of these places. The worst of Target and Wal Mart is nothing compared to your average corner store.

One more thing, almost NONE of the owners of these exhalted "mom and pops" lives in DC. They take your "local" money and happily spend it in places like Centreville and Columbia.

But hey, whatever makes you feel better then me for getting higher quality and lower prices at Target...

by metronic on Aug 5, 2009 5:36 pm • link • report