Tuesday, July 12, 2011
DC Housing Prices
I was watching the news the other day and it's official: the Washington Metro region is the highest performing real estate market in the country. Considering we just toured the U-Street area, it had me wondering: who's really buying these houses? Do we care if current residents are being priced out and forced to move? I think about the fact that the unemployment rate for blacks is 16% in the area compared to whites at 8%, how will U-Street or any other neighborhood going through renewal look like in the next 5 to 10 years?
Monday, July 11, 2011
Pics Continued...
These are the rest of the pics, ending at Ben's Next Door and cooling off with some drinks! The pic of the child with the aviator hat, was a pic that we were sitting next to at Ben's. I just thought that it was a great photo of all these African American children--and the one that stood out was the one with the hat because it immediately reminded me of the Tuskegee Airmen.
Saturday Afternoon Ventures
Hi Everyone,
I had a great time walking around the U Street Corridor on Saturday [thanks Dr. P!]! As you know, we walked around most of the corridor and in the end, Jaya, Randelle and I ended up at Ben's Next Door for a few drinks, bites and a good time!
While walking around, I had forgotten how busy it was on a Saturday and how much, just in the last two years, U Street has changed. It seems a great deal livelier, a little more active and has a host of more little restaurants. Although I'm very familiar with the area, I did notice a lot of little places that I didn't notice before [think of that soul food restaurant that was HAPPENIN', that we MUST try] and the diversity of the neighborhood has definitely grown. Two years ago, I noticed U Street had a heavy Latino population. Now, as we look around, I noticed a great deal of "hipsters" and random cute little shops. This area is definitely reminding me of Silverlake in Los Angeles, where locals can really tell the significant differences through gentrification.
Below are some pics I took on our little tour. Enjoy!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
U Street Corridor
Hello everyone,
This is my first time EVER posting on a blog. Whoohoo! Anyway, I'd like to share with you a couple of my impressions on the U Street Corridor.
Exiting the Center, I noticed there was a fair amount of foot traffic. People, African American and Caucasian alike, were walking about and seemed to be enjoying the neighborhood. However, as we came to the end of the block where the furniture store was located, I immediately noticed that African Americans were no where in sight. It was as if we had reached the place where an invisible boundary separated the African American and Caucasian population of that neighborhood.
The other thing that made a big impression on me was the African American War Memorial. The site is lovely and it encourages contemplation. That was my initial impression. My second impression of it was how much the style of it reminded me of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, located at the National Mall, but that's where the similarity ended, because I soon found myself wondering why the memorial was designed as is. For example, Why are the plates on which the names are inscribed so small? Why isn't this memorial grander like the memorials that we see at the National Mall? Did the residents of the U Street Corridor have a voice in the design of the memorial, or was it simply imposed on them? Given my personal nature, I would like to believe that the African American War Memorial is pleasing to everyone in the neighborhood. However, due to some of our class discussions, now I'm not so sure what to think of the memorial...
Margaret
Friday, June 10, 2011
WELCOME TO THE DC URBAN LAB BLOG!
THE DC URBAN LAB BLOG is a vehicle for the students and professor of the DC Urban Laboratory Summer 2011 course to record their reflections, photos, analysis, links, and other materials as an ongoing reflective record of their exploration of Washington, DC. This course is offered by the Liberal Studies Program of Georgetown University and taught by Dr. Joseph Palacios.
The texts for the course are:
GILLETTE: Howard Gillette, Jr., Between Justice & Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006 edition).
MODAN: Gabriella Gahlia Modan, Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place (New York: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
YOUNG: Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
The first two weeks of this eight week intensive seminar have addressed the following:
PART ONE: General Theory, Urban Studies and Civic Engagement through Community-Based Learning and Research
Week 1 (June 4): Overview of the Course; Logistics; Presentation of Community-Based Learning Principles and Methods
BLACKBOARD: C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, Chapter 1
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