The Washington Post: Gentrification in the D.C. area pushes people from homes and away from transit

The Washington Post, February 14, 2020: Gentrification in the D.C. area pushes people from homes and away from transit

Last year, U.S. News & World Report editor Joseph P. Williams wrote about the trials of living in the D.C. suburbs without a car. He relayed a 2012 “tumble down the economic ladder” during which he was evicted from his apartment near the Silver Spring Metro and ended up house-sitting in Mount Vernon, a Virginia suburb 15 miles south of the District. That summer, Williams tried fruitlessly to job hunt via public bus.

“The stop was a 15-minute walk away in fair weather, and the bus was scheduled to run in half-hour intervals. But the timetable was more of an estimate,” Williams described. “No bench, no shelter, no sidewalk — not even a curb — between me and traffic.

Far from being anomalous, Williams’s experience is becoming the norm for District residents displaced by the city’s rising rents and property taxes.

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