The District of Columbia spans over 68 square miles. About half its land area goes to buildings, 20% is open space, and over a quarter is “road infrastructure.” Among residential land, half is single family detached houses while high-rise apartments occupy less than 2% of DC’s total.

Land use in DC, 2006. Graph using data from the Comprehensive Plan.

I created the above chart using data in DC’s Comprehensive Plan. That plan divides land into more categories, but for simplicity, I grouped many of them.

It’s important to note that “roads” includes a lot of land that’s not paved roads. That’s because in many neighborhoods, the official public right-of-way includes much or all of people’s front yards; the actual property line is at the building or between it and the sidewalk. This “roadway” space covers yards, sidewalks, tree boxes, some grassy areas, and more. Still, it’s a big percentage.

The “jobs” category combines any sort of land use relating to where people work (commercial, industrial, public facilities, federal facilities, and institutional land). The “housing” category groups together of all of the housing categories.

The chart below breaks down the housing category:

Breakdown of DC’s residential land, 2006.

Out of the almost 30% of DC’s land which was used for housing in 2006, nearly half of that was occupied by single family detached homes — about 5,000 acres. The other half was split between rowhouses and low-rise apartments. Only about 4% of land dedicated to housing was occupied by high-rise apartments (so about 1.6% of the total).

This data is from 2006. I would expect some things have changed in ten years, but not everything. The large amount of “permanent open space” — much of it federal parkland — is not going anywhere.

How do these land use patterns affect our growing city? What changes should we expect, or should we advocate for?

David Whitehead was the Housing Program Organizer at Greater Greater Washington from 2016 to 2019.  A former high school math teacher and a community organizer, David worked to broaden and deepen Greater Greater Washington’s efforts to make the region more livable and inclusive through education, advocacy, and organizing. He lives in Eckington.