Thursday, April 27, 2006

Another Casualty of the Housing Bubble?


Building being torn down in Washington, DC.

6 comments:

  1. What did the housing bubble have to do with tearing down this building?

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  2. Being a NoVa resident, I'd imagine that a Condo will quickly be put up in its place. Watch for the free BMWs and Plasma Screen TV offers and paid Condo fee's for a year. Two years ago, no one thought this would happen. That federal jobs stabalize this area. If no one has noticed, the Fed Gov is slowly decentralizing, spreading key assets across the country to reduce the profile of a potential target. Two major DoD Agencies that I have worked for are leaving NoVa, Crystal City is being emptied of Active Duty military as well as the Sky complexes (Sky 1-7)on Little River Turnpike. This is all being done because of the 85 foot DHS requirement that states that DoD facilities must sit back at least 85 feet from a public road. This may affect other agencies... but I'm only familiar with the DoD.

    Long time reader of the Blog... keep up the great work.

    Cheers

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  3. One of the casualties of the housing bubble is the stripping for any kind of character, history or unique-ness that city neighborhoods have.

    This constant drive for "property-alues" is leading to the generic-fication (is that a new word?) of everything. So instead of the cute little ethnic grocery store down on 14th Street, they will rip it down and build a Storehouse with some generic wanna-be-loft condos. They will bulldoze everything that's unique and gives the neighborhood some personality and replace it with generic national-chain brand stores like CVS, Whole Foods, & Starbucks.

    It's like the suburbans escaped subaribia to move to the city, and then made it look like another suburban neighborhood. In the end they'll just stand their kind of empty feeling not knowing why it still doesn't feel right.

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  4. tulipsalloveragain,

    for people like you, we have the plentiful generic suburbs that will provide the all clean, nice and tidy look you are going for. for people who appreciate diversity and are repelled by fake, new and soul-less developments, we'd like to request you stay out of the district city limits.

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  5. I took the metro from my home in central DC to Clarendon last night. I dined at that little mexican place near the Clarendon Metro station.

    Food was good. The atmosphere was decidedly "Wanna-Be Urban" The Mall in Clarendon is scary: people actually live in overpriced condos above generic overpriced retail outlets?! Good grief. Nothing but white kids trying hard to be cool and sophisticated.

    Give me gritty "ghetto" DC any day.

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  6. It's good to know that there are others against this over-gentrification trend that's taking place across the whole country. I just want people to think about everything carefully.

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