Washington DC, America’s bluest city, is building more homes per capita than Houston—not with bottom-up zoning reform but with top-down government action.
Washington DC
Posted inPodcast
The New Deal Treasures Slated for Demolition
The pending sale of a historic federal building by Trump could mean the wrecking ball for the “Sistine Chapel of New Deal Art.”
Posted inPolitics
Trump’s Troop Deployment: Why It’s Both Ominous and Stupid
Where have all the Jeffrey Epstein files gone, long time passing? Being slowly handed to the House Oversight Committee, but not made public, so the details of Donald Trump’s connection with Epstein will stay a mystery. Don’t expect the Justice Department files to help. Trust Attorney General Pam Bondi not to release embarrassing information to […]
Posted inEconomy
To Create Abundant Housing, Ignore the YIMBY Playbook
Washington DC, America’s bluest city, is building more homes per capita than Houston—not with bottom-up zoning reform but with top-down government action.
Posted inPolitics
The Beginning of the End of the Subminimum Wage
On Tuesday, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to force restaurants to pay employees the full minimum wage. The rest of the nation is likely to follow.
Posted inMagazine
The Tipping Point
D.C.’s restaurant industry has defeated efforts to raise the minimum wage for restaurant workers before. This year, advocates believe they have a winning campaign.
Posted inJanuary/February/March 2022
Will D.C. Lead the Way on Vote by Mail?
A new bill would make the District the first major Black-plurality jurisdiction to permanently mail every registered voter a ballot. That could change the national conversation.
Posted inMagazine
Tilting at Windmills
There are four reasons why I strongly suspect that Reagan will not recover from Irangate. The press now smells blood and will aggressively pursue any hint of scandal. Many stones they overturn will have nothing under them, but they will find enough dirt to keep the administration’s reputation thoroughly soiled. In addition, because there are […]
Posted inMagazine
Tilting at Windmills
I’m getting too old to write my-generation pieces anymore and I have one more thing to say, so I’d better say it now. The rap on my generation—people born during the baby boom, but young enough so that the sixties represented an adolescent romance rather than a permanent life commitment—is that we’ve returned to the […]
Posted inMagazine
Today’s Best Journalism: Better Than Fiction
The sensation that Allen Drury’s Advise and Consent caused when it was published in 1959 can be taken as a sign of how hungry the nation was at that moment for some sense of the texture of modern Washington. Today it seems incredible that Advise and Consent could have made the earth move—it’s terribly dated, a routine procession of […]
