Posts about Meta

If you can't make it in person, I have arranged for someone to video record and webcast the forum. I'll post the live stream here on Greater Greater Washington, and then we'll have the archived video later this week.

How to write [blog posts] well, on Monday

Would you be interested in writing for Greater Greater Washington? We're always looking for people interested in becoming contributors, especially folks to write about issues in Northern Virginia, about education in DC or elsewhere, or many other topics. Or, perhaps you write, or want to write, for another blog.

Writing for a blog is not the same as writing a planning document, academic transportation paper, or many other things. Blog posts need to be short, to the point, and attention-grabbing. Greater Greater Washington editors work with many of our contributors to take raw material of posts and make them into good blog posts.

I'm giving a free talk on Monday, March 19th on how to write for blogs (and some lessons which help with other types of writing, as well). It's 6:30-8 pm at the West End Library, in the small meeting room.

If you're interested in contributing to Greater Greater Washington but can't attend, email us at info@ggwash.org. Thank you!

Reservation 13 public meeting

Mayor Gray promised residents on both sides of the Anacostia that he would come to a public meeting and hear from residents about his plan to give away DC's best opportunity for a new mixed-use neighborhood to a cranky and litigious billionaire football team owner for practice fields closed to the public.

He's just rescheduled that meeting to Thursday, March 22 at 7 pm. Local leaders are working on finalizing a location (they had a site for the original date, the following week). Check back on the Greater Greater Washington calendar for updates.

There's also an information meeting on Monday, March 19 to inform residents about the history of Reservation 13 and what the master plan actually says (which isn't necessarily the same as what Jack Evans says).

And more...

• Downtown DC Kids is having a meeting to organize for a downtown playground on Wednesday, March 14 at 6 pm.
  
• The forum on sexual harassment on Metro is on Thursday, March 22 at 7 pm.
  
• 3 local planners will discuss federal design at NCPC on Thursday, March 29 at 6:30 pm.
  
• There's more on our complete calendar.

Have an event for the calendar? Email it to info@ggwash.org.

Each evening, 2 people from the editing team look at posts that have been submitted and whip them into shape to run on the site. We are looking for folks to join this group who can devote either every Thursday evening, or every other Thursday evening plus backup duty at a few other times, to this editing. Editors are asked to make time to edit up to 3 articles, then write back to the authors with a summary of their changes.

In addition, we need some additional daytime editors. These editors double-check what the night editors have done and actually schedule posts to run on the site. Matt Johnson and I currently do this day editing, but our time is limited, and we would like a few other folks who can at least fill in sometimes. All you need is to either have free time during at least some days, or a job which is okay with you doing a bit of Greater Greater Washington work here and there during business hours.

If you're interested in volunteering for either of these and being a part of our blog endeavor, please email info@ggwash.org to let us know, along with any pertinent information like what kind of writing or editing you've done before and what your schedule looks like.

Thanks for helping to make Greater Greater Washington greater!

On other issues, Greater Greater Washington has provided an opportunity to have a thoughtful discussion about the issues and policies that could address them. We are looking for contributors who can do the same for education and child-raising topics.

Whether you have kids of your own, have a professional background in these issues, or just read obsessively about them, we'd welcome having you contribute. You can either take a topic that's been in the news, or some of your own experience and knowledge, and provide some explanation and policy analysis, like Caroline's, Mitch's, Ken's and Bruce's articles, among others.

All GGW contributors (and editors) are volunteers. We'd like you to be willing to write about 2 articles per month or more. If you are interested, please email info@ggwash.org. We're looking forward to helping share your ideas with our over 75,000 monthly readers and many of the area's policymakers.

If you're interested in contributing, email info@ggwash.org. Greater Greater Washington reaches around 75,000 people each month and your words can greatly inform the public discourse. Plus, you can be a part of a great community. Please let us know what subjects you find most interesting, and if you have writing on blogs or elsewhere that we can see, include a link.

We'd like you to be willing to attend 2 panels or community meetings a month, and to be willing to write up at least a draft article that night or the next morning, so that we can tell people about them right away. We hope you have as much fun being a GGW contributor as all of us do!

If your goal is to prove your side of the issue is right, be civil and logical. Doing that might win the argument. But if your goal is simply to make other people feel bad about themselves, go somewhere else. There are plenty of places where vitriol and hatefulness are accepted as a matter of course. This is not one of those places.

In an effort to improve the dialogue, and also to clarify the boundaries of appropriate commenting, the GGW contributor team has devised a comment policy to articulate more clearly what we are looking for and what kinds of comments will lead to deletion.

The policy is posted below. It goes into effect immediately.

Greater Greater Washington encourages comments from all, regardless of point of view. We hope to build a strong dialogue around the issues discussed on the website. A healthy debate and differing opinions is an important part of making Greater Washington greater.

Welcoming a discussion with multiple points of view does not, however, mean that anyone has the right to post any comment. Comments that attack other commenters or contributors or dissuade others from posting their ideas serve to chill the discussion. We will monitor comments and may, without notice, delete those that violate the following guidelines:

• All commenters must treat their fellow commenters, authors, and other users of the site with respect.
  
• Comments should address the substance of the argument being made, not the person making the argument. Arguments which criticize a person rather than specific ideas are not permitted.
  
• Name-calling or comments which berate or belittle other individuals will not be tolerated. If you disagree with someone's ideas, please make your case using a well-reasoned, logical argument.
  
• You are not required to use your full name to comment here. However, if you use a pseudonym, please be consistent. Stick with the same name and do not publish multiple comments under various names. When picking a "handle", please pick one that is unique. If another regular commenter already uses the same handle, you may be asked to change yours.
  
• Impersonating another commenter is not allowed. You should always speak in your own voice.
  
• We do not tolerate profanity or abusive language. People of all ages read this site and it its important to keep the dialogue civil.
  
• Do not advocate violent acts against any individual. Comments which do so may be referred to appropriate authorities if necessary.
  
• It is not appropriate to post the same comment in multiple areas of the site.
  
• If a comment is deleted for any reason, feel free to email the editors with questions. Making repeated comments in an effort to test the editors' boundaries or lash out in retribution will only lead to further comments being deleted.

Editors may, at their discretion, remove any other comments that do not contribute to a healthy discussion or which fail to treat other commenters or contributors with respect. Editors may also remove any other comments for any reason at their sole discretion.

Greater Greater Washington is not responsible for the content of comments generated by users of the site. By posting any comments, posts or other material, you agree to comply with this policy and give Greater Greater Washington a perpetual, transferrable, worldwide, royalty-free license to reproduce, distribute, publish, display, edit, modify, create derivative works from, and otherwise use your submission for any purpose in any form and on any media.

Thank you for reading Greater Greater Washington and helping to build a strong dialogue.

Sidewalks at construction sites: DC instituted a policy requiring covered sidewalks or pedestrian walkways during construction, instead of the then-common practice of just forcing pedestrians to cross to the other side of the street.

Last week, TBD reported that the Convention Center hotel is apparently not following this practice at 9th Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW.

Potomac Yard station: Alexandria officials were talking about getting developers around Potomac Yard to pay for a new station. That tax structure has become a reality and the environmental review begun; will the station get built on time?

Our first mission statement: My vision for this blog, three years ago:

Urban centers and walkable suburbs in America are experiencing a renaissance, including the Washington, DC region. Unfortunately, too many people are forced to leave great neighborhoods to find affordable housing or good schools. If people want to live in single-family homes, they certainly may. But everyone should have the choice to live in an apartment or townhouse in a walkable, safe, livable neighborhood.

People make a city great. Downtown job centers, historic neighborhoods, and new edge cities should all be full of people, walking to do errands, sitting outside at sidewalk cafes, enjoying parks, living life, and interacting with each other. Unfortunately, the streets of downtown DC are fairly empty during the day and even quieter on weekends, with little more than one inward-facing office building after another. We should encourage more mixed-use development downtown, with more residences and more retail shops, enabling restaurants to operate all week and more people to live near where they work.

We should continue the trend of building new, mixed-use neighborhoods in areas such as Arlington, Alexandria, Bethesda, College Park, Rockville, Silver Spring and Tysons Corner as well as the District of Columbia, where people can live, work, eat, shop and find entertainment in walking distance. We should construct buildings that engage a vibrant street life, with stores and restaurants and human-scale features, rather than cutting themselves off from the wider world.

We should expand Metro and build streetcars in DC to allow more people to get to work and other destinations without need of a car. We should put higher density development near transit stations, to enable more people to travel without cars, and so that the region can grow without adding traffic congestion. We should make it easier for people to get to work by walking or biking or rollerblading if they wish, with adequate and safe sidewalks, bike lanes and paths.

We should stop building new highways which only foster more driving and more traffic. And we should set appropriate prices for driving in and out of our city, or using parking spaces in our neighborhoods, so that people who choose to own cars, use the roads, and park pay the fair cost of the land they are using, without being unfairly burdened or subsidized.

The Washington, DC area is already great. DC itself has some of the most beautiful, mixed-use, and transit-accessible neighborhoods in any American city. Arlington and Bethesda contain Smart Growth areas that are models for cities everywhere. As the region grows, we must preserve what already works and expand what is possible, to ensure that there are enough great neighborhoods for everyone who wants to live, work, shop or play in one.