DC Neighborhoods

Yes, D.C.’s Chinatown is small in comparison to others around the world, but it still has a storied history. Here are ten things we bet you didn’t know.

At dusk on a brisk Saturday afternoon in Washington, when the government shutdown has muted the Mall and scared away tourists, the capital’s recently unwrapped stretch of waterfront is a rare spot of liveliness. A curving pier unfurls,…

I was standing at the cash register at my grocery co-op on Wednesday night, ready to pay for my bananas and graham crackers, when dread gripped me. My wallet. It was gone. And I could only have left it one place: the G9 bus, from which I…

Nestled in the northwest corner of D.C.’s diamond, Spring Valley’s rolling landscapes are home to diplomats, prominent journalists, and even a young Kermit the Frog. American University consumes most of the Northwest neighborhood, with…

A mural that hugs the field at 11th Street NW next to Tubman Elementary School features a poem about Columbia Heights that I’ve always felt captures the neighborhood. Written in both English and Spanish, it reads:

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “Not in My Back Yard,” and the NIMBY-ist mindset that people take whenever change threatens whatever way of life with which they’ve grown comfortable. But what happens when it’s not the backyard in…

Sandwiched north of the Anacostia River and south of the U.S. Capitol, Navy Yard earns media attention most often for its ballpark, where the Washington Nationals strive each year for an elusive spot in the World Series.

A new analysis of U.S. Census data by the D.C. Policy Center (DCPC), a local think tank, underscores big demographic differences between the east and west sides of the District.

While DC has traditionally hosted a large share of residents who moved here from across the country, there is the mistaken impression that it is a city of transplants rather than a place with a distinct culture where people have…

Here’s something most everybody living in D.C. already knows: This city looks very different today than it did in the relatively recent past. In the last 10 to 20 years, large numbers of newcomers have dramatically changed the landscape of…

A neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to shopping local for the holidays

Navy Yard dwellers have been feuding with people who live in Capitol Riverfront. Denizens of the Ballpark District are tussling with residents of Southeast Waterfront. The South Capitol Hill crowd is getting into it with folks from the…

For the first time in human history, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, a shift that is resulting in new challenges. The Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Community Museum, with its 50th anniversary exhibition, A…

As home prices in the District continue inching upward, it comes as no surprise that the city has more neighborhoods this year where the median price of a home exceeds $1 million. Today, UrbanTurf takes a look at which of the city's…

One last time the faithful rose, mounting the steps and flocking into the pews of Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ, one of Washington’s most historically significant African American churches. They broke bread one last…

There’s a kind of sport in identifying the neighborhood name for any particular spot in Washington — a sport played by realtors, developers, and planning geeks. Sadly (or happily), it’s all for naught; there are no official neighborhoods in…

When anything goes wrong in a city, policymakers all too often just want to move black people around, asserted Mindy Fullilove, a clinical psychiatrist at the New School, to an audience at a 2015 conference on equitable development in the…