Around the City

Urban affairs, neighborhoods, subways and the people who are affected by them all.

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June 29, 2011 | 1:03 PM | By

Mapping D.C.’s Housing Prices

We know that housing prices in D.C. are on the rise — the District is the only major city that saw an increase in home prices in the past year. But our housing prices haven’t really dropped all that much from the peak of the housing bubble, either.

Real estate website Zillow and Wall Street Journal have mapped the drop in home prices in six major metro areas since the height of the housing bubble. The big takeaway for D.C. is that in nearly all D.C. zip codes, home prices haven’t severely plummeted since the height of the bubble; in some neighborhoods, such as Dupont Circle, they’ve dropped by only 4 percent.

The only zip codes with housing drops below the metro average were in 20024 — which includes the Southwest Waterfront — and 20032, in Ward 8. There is also a huge east-west divide in the region; the suburbs to the east in Prince George’s County experienced the most severe post-bubble drops in areas abutting the District. And those suburbs are home to many residents who left D.C.’s Wards 7 and 8.

Screenshot of Zillow/Wall Street Journal Interactive Maps

Green dots show housing price declines from the peak of the market that are above the metro average; red dots show declines below the metro average.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Housing, Zillow
June 28, 2011 | 11:47 AM | By

D.C. to Hire 4,000 More Youth for Summer Jobs

Courtesy of D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities

Youth work on a mural project in Anacostia during last year's D.C. Summer Employment Program.

Here’s some good news for District youth: nearly half of the jobs cut from the city’s summer employment program have now been restored.

City agencies, youth advocates and parents had been bracing for a summer with fewer structured activities for teens — budget cuts meant that the summer jobs program had to be scaled back by 8,000 jobs. But Mayor Vincent Gray announced Monday the city has found additional money and that 4,000 more teens can now get summer jobs, the Washington Post reports.  The extra money comes from revised revenue estimates, thanks to an improving economy. The program began Monday:

For the first time, applicants were asked to indicate their interests and employers were allowed to interview and screen applicants.

The first day of work on Monday appeared to run more smoothly than in recent years. Officials said only a few mix-ups were reported — such as participants arriving before their supervisors or requesting to be reassigned — but nothing unexpected.

The Department of Employment Services has a hotline to field calls, but the agency was mostly occupied with finding new placements for all the youths coming off the wait list. A department spokesman said the jobs would be found this week and participants would start July 5.

Last year, 20,000 youth had summer jobs. The program employs District residents ages 14 through 21 to earn minimum wage while working for local government and businesses.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Jobs, Youth
June 27, 2011 | 5:26 PM | By

Report: Hispanics Most Likely to Use E-Readers

Flickr: Sean MacEntee

Hispanics are adopting tablet devices, such as the iPad, at faster rates than whites and blacks.

Hispanic adults are more likely to own e-readers and tablets than whites and blacks, according to a new Pew Center report.

The demographic shift in this growing segment of technology consumers happened in the past six months. Back in November 2010, 6 percent of whites and 5 percent of Hispanics owned e-readers. In May 2011, 11 percent of whites and 15 percent of Hispanics owned e-readers. The margin is even larger for tablets.

Those numbers may not be entirely surprising for those monitoring demographic trends in the technology world. Blacks and Latinos are more likely to get involved using social media, and minority groups have been very active at using smartphones and taking advantage of the full range of what they offer. But despite such gains, there is still a digital divide – in nearly all-black large swaths of D.C., for instance, high-speed Internet connectivity is below 40 percent.

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Digital Divide, e-reader, iPad, Race
June 23, 2011 | 10:29 AM | By

DCentric Picks: ‘The Gentrification of Chocolate City’

Looking for an event that relates to race or class in D.C.? DCentric will be regularly posting event listings we believe will be of interest to our readers.  If you have an event you think we should feature, email dcentric@wamu.org.

Flickr: Carlos Martinez

What: The Thursday Network‘s general body meeting tonight is on the theme “The Gentrification of Chocolate City: Reality versus Perception.”

Where: NPR Building, 635 Massachusetts Ave. NW.

When: 6:45 p.m., Thursday.

Cost: Admission and parking is free.

Why you should go: Attend if you can’t get enough of elevated discussions about gentrification, or if you just want to get a sense current and future development in D.C. Panelists include Jalal Greene, former director of D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, and  Veronica Davis, Ward 7 activist and Nspiregreen partner.

Other events to consider: Joy DeGruy, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, will discuss the “unique kind of stressors African Americans are trying to cope with,” coping mechanisms they’ve developed and special challenges faced by children and youth. She begins her talk at 5 p.m., Sunday at RFD Washington (810 7th St. NW).

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, History, DCentric Picks, Gentrification
June 22, 2011 | 3:16 PM | By

Former Post Reporter Comes Out as Undocumented Immigrant

“Undocumented immigrant” is trending locally and nationally on Twitter after news broke that former Washington Post journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas is an undocumented immigrant.

Vargas came out about his immigration status through a New York Times Magazine story, which was published online today. Vargas, originally from the Philippines, spent years working his way through the Post newsroom ranks in D.C., and chronicles his personal history and what led him to come out:

Last year I read about four students who walked from Miami to Washington to lobby for the Dream Act, a nearly decade-old immigration bill that would provide a path to legal permanent residency for young people who have been educated in this country. At the risk of deportation — the Obama administration has deported almost 800,000 people in the last two years — they are speaking out. Their courage has inspired me.

There are believed to be 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. We’re not always who you think we are. Some pick your strawberries or care for your children. Some are in high school or college. And some, it turns out, write news articles you might read. I grew up here. This is my home. Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own.

Vargas’ story struck me in particular because he spent so much time living and reporting here in D.C. He writes that during his time at the Post, “I began feeling increasingly paranoid, as if I had ‘illegal immigrant’ tattooed on my forehead — and in Washington, of all places, where the debates over immigration seemed never-ending.”

Vargas has now left traditional reporting to start Define American, a campaign meant to raise awareness about immigration. Watch this Define American-produced video to hear Vargas talk about his childhood and meet some of the individuals who have helped him along the way:

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Immigration
June 22, 2011 | 12:58 PM | By

When Names are ‘Americanized’

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, I wrote about my decision to drop my “Americanized” name in favor of my Persian birth name, and a number of you chimed in about the perils and pitfalls of having a foreign name in the U.S.

The choice to drop or legally change such a name can be complicated. For some, birth names don’t match the common name structure in the United States. Commenter Curtis Alia writes that U.S. officials documented the wrong last name for his Arab father when he immigrated to the U.S. due to misunderstanding the Arab naming structure:  “When I was born, I was given that same incorrect last name, and only until 1994 did we finally change our names to the actual family names from back home.”

Some immigrants make the decision to legally change their names rather than adopt an informal nickname, and marriage presents a convenient opportunity to do so. But that decision could mean losing a meaningful connection. Commenter island girl in a land w/o sea, who is an immigrant with a Spanish name, writes:

When I got married, I changed my name to my husband’s more “American” family name — a choice that i still struggle with. At the time, I was tired of people mangling my last name and making assumptions based on it. Yet now that my parents are gone, I sometimes wish that I had retained my father’s name, or at the very least, come up with some sort of compound-name compromise.

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FILED UNDER: Culture, The People, Identity, Immigration, Maz Jobrani
June 21, 2011 | 5:16 PM | By

Homicide Rate in D.C. Dropping, but Racial Disparity Still Large

Flickr: Tony Webster

D.C.’s homicide rate is dropping, but blacks are still disproportionately affected, according to Metropolitan Police Department statistics. Greater Greater Washington reports:

D.C.’s black homicide figures are still much higher than comparable rates at the national level. In fact, on a per resident basis, blacks in the District face over double the homicide rate as blacks in the nation as a whole.

There were 1.3 homicides per every 100,000 white D.C. residents in 2010, the same year that saw 37.7 homicides per every 100,000 black D.C. residents.

Homicide Watch D.C. editor Laura Amico, whose mission is to document every homicide in the District, wrote in a GGW comment:

It is so tragic to add victim photo after victim photo to the albums and see young black man after young black man (with some exceptions). Sit through court and you see much the same parade. The one thing that becomes so clear is that in homicides, there are so many more victims than just those that are killed. All the families and so many friends, of both victims and defendants, are impacted and affected by the deaths, too.

Communities are affected by violence in multiple ways. Take health: violence, or even the perception of violence, can prevent young and old alike from being physically active, as we’ve previously noted:

Obesity rates are higher in Wards 6, 7 and 8 than elsewhere in the city. Ward 8, which has the highest homicide rate, also has the lowest physical activity rate. According to D.C.’s Overweight and Obesity Action Plan, 15 percent of all deaths in the District are a result of obesity. But in some parts of the District, the fear of getting shot while walking in your neighborhood can trump the more subtle reality of dying from an obesity-related illness.

FILED UNDER: The People, Crime
June 21, 2011 | 12:26 PM | By

Five ‘Surprising’ Facts About Race

 

Community Foundation

Experts spoke about the state of race at the Community Foundation's annual Putting Race on the Table meeting.

 

Last week, during the Community Foundation‘s annual meeting on race — Putting Race on the Table — moderator Michele Norris of NPR asked members of the expert panel to provide a surprising anecdote, statistic or fact that illustrated the state of race in the U.S. Here are some of their responses:

  1. African Americans and government jobs: Tynesia Boyea Robinson, founder of D.C.-nonprofit Year Up, said cutting government jobs disproportionately impacts African Americans. According to a study by Labor Center at the University of California, 21 percent of working black adults work for the government, compared to 17 percent of white workers and 15 percent of Hispanic workers) . Robinson said “the few gains you had from an economic standpoint for people have color may not survive.”
  2. Racial health disparities in D.C: Margaret K. O’Bryon, head of D.C.-based Consumer Health Foundation, said “if you live in Congress Heights in Ward 8, you get sicker and you die sooner than if you lived in Friendship Heights in Ward 3.” O’Byron’s characterization of health disparities can be backed up by D.C. Department of Health statistics (which can be seen here and here) that show vast disparities between predominately black Ward 8 and predominately white Ward 3.
  3. Explicit racism versus racial anxiety: John a. powell is executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and he studies racial attitudes in media and the country.  He has measured a decrease in explicitly racist attitudes, “but a substantial uptick in racial anxiety,” particularly among white Americans. Powell cites the birthers movement and the demand for Barrack Obama to show his birth certificate as examples of such racial anxiety.
  4. Poor and Latino in Montgomery County: Gustavo Torres, executive director of immigrant advocacy nonprofit CASA de Maryland, highlighted a local issue: “the feminization of poverty” and how poverty affects the Latino community. In Montgomery County, Md., women represent 59 percent of the poor [PDF], and according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, nearly 13 percent of Hispanics live below the poverty line — that’s higher than any other racial group in the Maryland suburb [PDF].
  5. The “Bradley Effect:” Sociologist and author Dalton Conley said that the “Bradley Effect” appears to be diminishing. The phenomenon, coined after the defeat of Tom Bradley, who was a black candidate running for California governor in the 1980s, is when opinion polls and election results differ because voters tell pollsters they are going to vote for a black candidate but actually vote for a white candidate. The Pew Center found that there was no systematic evidence showing the Bradley Effect playing a role the election of Barrack Obama as president.
FILED UNDER: The People, Community Foundation, Race
June 20, 2011 | 3:52 PM | By

In D.C., is Green the Color that Transcends All Others?

Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Which matters more: race or class?

A new Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows that D.C. residents see class, not race, as the District’s biggest divider. But read past the headline and you’ll find complex intersections between race and class.

On basic quality of life issues — livability of neighborhoods and paying for food and housing — the wealth gap mattered more than the race gap.  But that makes sense; if you’re earning more than $100,000, whether you’re black or white, you can afford to live and eat quite comfortably.

There are instances in which race cut across class lines. In describing how wealthy blacks and whites differed greatly in their outlooks of the economy, the Post reports:

African Americans who participated in the poll said later in interviews that they feel economic insecurity, even if they are doing well now. They also said they had friends and family members who were unemployed or in the economic doldrums…

In many cases, blacks said they felt as if their financial footing was on precarious ground, largely because they did not have a deep well of savings or because they did not have family members to fall back on.

Those with professional degrees aren’t always guaranteed a good job, but if you’re black, your chances are even worse. And then there’s racial discrimination. Such experiences can affect blacks equally regardless of income level.

Overall, the 1,342 respondents overwhelmingly said that the District is divided (76 percent), and that income (56 percent) rather than race (11 percent), separates people. But despite such sentiments, the city’s whitest ward — Ward 3 — is also its wealthiest. And the ward with the highest concentration of black residents — Ward 7 –  also has the highest unemployment rate. It’s difficult to isolate race and class when faced with such stark realities.

FILED UNDER: The People, Race and Class
June 17, 2011 | 1:13 PM | By

Logan Circle to Get More Gentrified?

Logan Circle is one of those almost completely gentrified neighborhoods. It’s also one of those hot areas where rents may increase by 10 percent. And residents of 54 townhouses in the neighborhood, who “give the neighborhood a modicum of income diversity” could be leaving, reports Housing Complex.


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Two big developers, one of which is Monument Reality, are interested in buying up the properties. In the 1980s residents began buying the townhouses, once city-owned rental units, for $100,000 to $150,000. Now, developers are willing to pay upwards of $800,000 per townhouse, clear the land and put as much housing or commercial density on it as possible. But before that can take place, the condominium associations have to dissolve. More from Housing Complex, who wrote about a meeting of residents that took place Thursday night:

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Gentrification, Housing, Logan Circle