Don’t take today’s zoning for granted — the local government can zone to meet with the needs of the community on almost a moment’s notice and without your agreement or even advance knowledge. Although this change happens mostly in rural areas, check with the local government to see if any zoning questions for your area are scheduled. While you’re a

It has often happened before, in many other parts of the world. People are attracted to an area because of its beauty and its promise of peace, and then they transform it into a high-rent suburb complete with cocktail parties, burglar-alarm systems, four-wheel-drive recreational vehicles, and other essential trappings of la vie rustique. I

DC is being gentrified like major cities everywhere. It raises the question: To whom does this place belong? That is a local question, but it is also an existential one. We are literally still fighting over whether Black people belong to their home places and whether their home places belong to them. Once, the formerly enslaved migrated to DC with

Despite the best efforts of committed housing activists, much of the energy in this arena was absorbed into bourgeois consumer activism. A fetish for the gritty and the obscure was transmuted into delectable luxury goods.