Ryan Avent

Recent Actions

• Posted Multipli-city to DCist
  Former editor-in-chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Here’s an interesting question to consider: is the District of Columbia becoming less diverse? With whites once again moving into the city, the question of the sustainability of the District’s multicultural heritage has been raised, but what do recent demographic shifts actually suggest about the future of a diverse D.C.? Over the past decade, the city as a whole has become less...
• Posted Every Line a Green Line to DCist
  Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Brookland recently got the news that Dwellings, a home furnishings store and one of our most promising main street retailers, was closing due to slow growth in sales. The announcement touched off a neighborhood discussion on what was wrong, exactly, with the shopping environment in the leafy, residential neighborhood. Many locals noted that low residential density made running a retail business a...
• Posted Alone Together to DCist
  Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. The Washington Highlands neighborhood of the District of Columbia is terra incognita for many Washingtonians. Tucked up against the District’s southeastern border with Maryland’s Prince George’s County, the area is walled off from the rest of the city by Oxon Run Park, the Anacostia Freeway, Bolling Air Force Base, and the Anacostia River, not to mention the yawning gap between its economic...
• Posted Marketplace of Ideas to DCist
  Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. It was good that the lunch keynote didn’t last any longer; I was ready to hand Jim Abdo a check. Those of us on the academic side of the development industry aren’t used to such raw displays of enthusiasm. After following Abdo through his slide presentation on the history of his business and the mammoth project he’s begun on New York Avenue...
• Posted Gentrifact and Gentrifiction to DCist
  Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. I don’t suppose it would surprise most District residents to hear that there are sharp differences in income between the city’s neighborhoods and racial and ethnic groups. We see it all around us, but especially in those parts of the city where the lives of the haves abut and intermingle with those of the have-nots. These gentrification frontiers are often a locus...