The High Price of Keeping DC’s Skyline Low

This is Washington, DC, capital of the United States. If you look carefully, this city is unique in lacking something that most other American cities have. Can you tell what it is?
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References:
High-rises safer than single-family homes for fire: www.glengower....
Tysons is second biggest job centre: dw-rowlands.gi...
Job/worker data: onthemap.ces.c...
Purple Line to Tysons: www.dcpolicyce...
Reece Martin on job sprawl: • The Worst type of Urba...
Alon Levy on height limits: pedestrianobse...

[@PetrichorWeaves]

I'm not sure I agree about the job sprawl being worse than housing sprawl comment. I live in Berlin and office workers are spread quite well around the city. I really like it as it means instead of everyone commuting in one way in the morning and out the other, people are more spread out and just head in any direction. While it's still busier, it avoids the jams and big crowds on public transit/roads/bike lanes. It helps that the transit is also quite decentered and runs all over the city, instead of being a radial design.

[@RMTransit]

Berlin also has a “radial” system, it’s just that the ringbahn + dense U-Bahn in the core means that employment anywhere within that zone is very easy to access from almost anywhere. It would be like Berlin clustering a large amount of its office jobs at Hoppegarten, or Mahlow, instead of near the central Spree or Alexanderplatz.

[@groundzero_-lm4md]

North America focuses on a spur system getting people into downtown and out in the evening.

[@n.bastians8633]

Do you have any source on Berlin employment being very spread out? Because there's a common misconception about European cities that their jobs are less centralized than US cities. The opposite is true: If you look at the amount of jobs in a central built-up area of about 100 km2 vs outside of that, Paris for example has 2.2 million jobs inside, despite the vast amount of Paris area inhabitants living outside of that area. In the US, this level of job centralization is really only seen in the New York area (which is vastly more populous), with Midtown Manhattan, but it's significantly lower in most other US cities. European cities consistently have more jobs centralized around the central areas than US cities of similar size. I think the reason for this misconception is the lack of a visible "downtown" in European cities. But if you look at Berlin, while there isn't a single downtown, there's a highly dense area filling out the entire Ringbahn. Most Berliners don't live there, but a lot of them commute into the Ring every day. In the DC area, downtown is a tiny area really only as large as a single Berlin "Ortsteil" . You'd never know that the DC area is actually significantly more populous than the Berlin area! Instead over two thirds of jobs there are located in suburban office parks that really have no equivalent in Europe. As a counter point against the video: Cities like Paris show than you can have much higher job centralization that similarly sized American cities even without skyscrapers. It should be possible for DC to build the job market inside DC proper, which is still mostly single-family homes, without changing the height limit.

[@evlee1295]

I think the problem is that spatially the DC edge cities (Crystal City, Silver Springs, etc.) are 6-10 miles out from the city center, whereas the Berlin ringbahn is 2-3 miles from the city center. Not sure how many offices are outside the ringbahn in Berlin but I would guess not that many. So even without accounting for Berlin’s much better transit, it’s just a lot more space to cover for the commuter in the DMV area

[@paxundpeace9970]

Berlin has very good public transit and fewer cars per resident.

[@swedneck]

it sounds to me like DC just needs a radial connection, something that has been extremely successful in stockholm and helsinki with their light rail lines that do precisely this.

[@GeoMeridium]

They're slowly working on the first bit of this with the purple line, but given how much more expensive and politically challenged US projects tend to be, it'll be a couple decades before it resembles anything like a radial connection.

[@jacobfyock2788]

@@aturchomicz821lmao shut up

[@secretagentcat]

@@GeoMeridium you all need to tell your congressmen and politicians to grow a pair and ignore nimby's. we can make change if we stick together, stop standing by and letting the suburbs ruin our country

[@EliStettner]

The Purple line will be open soon! Like three years guys. It’s exciting! Be optimistic!

[@secretagentcat]

@@EliStettner could have been quicker if we all yelled at our gov and took action as a group, the nimbys would be crushed. stop being self centered and think as a group, we are ALL american in america

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

The stations of the DC Metro are a sight to behold! The flashing lights, the hexagonal floor tiles, the waffles...chef's kiss design. Many Metro stations were designed by Chicago architect Harry Weese, and they not only have aspects of Brutalist design, but also reflect the influence of Washington's neoclassical architecture in their overarching coffered ceiling vaults! Weese worked with lighting designer Bill Lam from Cambridge, MA on the indirect lighting used throughout the system. Weese and his employees visited European cities like Lisbon, Moscow, Milan, Paris, Rome, and Stockholm, hoping to take the best elements of each and combine them into the perfect system for DC. In Lisbon, they noted the design of the ticket booth and the attendant’s uniform, as well as the minimal interruption of the subway stairs on a typical street. In Moscow, they took note of the palatial glories of the underground stations, from cut-glass lanterns to marble paneling. In Milan, they took note of its Modernist design. Weese created a proposal with dozens of views for station interiors with a simple semiellipse, with a flat bottom and curved top. For cut-and-cover stations, the vault was proposed to have straight, vertical walls supporting a curved ceiling. In Weese’s first presentations to the US Commission of Fine Arts during the spring and summer of 1967, he attempted to assimilate his European travels into something Washingtonian, stations are shallow when possible, entered through cuts in the sidewalk, as in Lisbon, with minimal interruptions between street and platform. But the CFA wanted it to feel monumental, no exposed rock walls like Stockholm, and something like the inside of a thermos bottle. So he changed his thought. He felt the necessities of each station would produce the variety, that "You don't try to make them different for different's sake. We think it's very appropriate for Washington. After all". To Weese, the sweeping, swooping, floating lines of Metro's plazas, stations and mezzanines are the system's best feature. Once they were chosen, he said, the long, long escalators and the indirect, somewhat dim lighting in stations fell into step as a result.

[@flyydice2609]

It also has that nice metro smell

[@EliStettner]

Yeah, it’s gotten worse in the last few years, but is still by far the cleanest metro in the east coast.

[@AnotherDuck]

I like our rock walls. /Citizen of Stockholm

[@moneykingmm9298]

.

[@ThisisDevaan]

DC is similar to a lot of European cities where the city center isn’t mainly for office zoning, but rather designated districts outside the downtown. I think why DC can’t compare as well is simply the American-style suburbs expected to use transit like a European city.

[@denislomakin247]

DC resident here - thanks for covering the District. The Height Act is fairly well liked by us in the region. While it may not produce a skyscraper-filled skyline from afar, it preserves the iconic view of the monuments from many different parts of the city. Many people also associate it with a less imposing feeling on the street level from the surrounding buildings, although in my opinion this is already not the case downtown where all the buildings are block wide and 13 stories. Repealing it would potentially open up the construction of more commercial real estate in the downtown core, but a lot of that is already struggling to find tenants. So I’m not sure repealing the Height Act would be nearly as impactful on the health of the city as reducing car access and combating nimbyism. It’s not a priority for me in my advocacy. Love your channel!

[@lindsiria]

I agree. I lived in Vienna, Austria for awhile, and it showed me you can have dense cities without needing skyscrappers. There are almost no big 20 story buildings in Vienna (outside the business district where most people don't live, just work). It makes a city feel more welcoming, and you have far less shadows due to huge buildings as well.

[@sebastianjoseph2828]

One thing I don't think the video made clear is that the Height Act doesn't put a blanket ban on buildings over X ft tall, but it ties the height limit to the width of the road the building faces. So that's why downtown you have large avenues that can have a 13 story building but on a quiet street the height limit might be 6 stories. Agreed that there are so many neighborhoods to build up along existing metro stops, more corridors for metro expansion inside DC (or the Streetcar if it were dedicated lanes, say along Georgia Ave or Wisconsin Ave), and room for TOD especially to the east in PG County which notably lags behind Red, Orange, and Silver line TOD.

[@TheStrangeBloke]

You talk about combatting NIMBYism, while also speaking about why you need to prevent people from building in your backyard. (aka, you are literally espousing NIMBYism) You are also asserting that actually people don't want to build here even though you also want to ban them from doing so. This all seems contradictory. I'm also from the region, and I hate the height restriction. Other than restricting height around the monuments, I see no purpose to it except to increase rents and worsen our serious homelessness and crime problem. Commercial spaces that are far from metro stations are struggling to find tenants, but higher value areas like those near metro stations would absolutely get built up if the restriction didn't exist, allowing commercial spaces elsewhere to be replaced with residential buildings.

[@stevensmith2078]

@@TheStrangeBloke The beauty of Washington is that its downtown doesn’t have skyscrapers. Like in Paris or Amsterdam, build them away from the core. Besides, the majority of DC is not built to the maximum restriction. That is not a constraint that matters. With Rosslyn an easy metro stop from downtown, if the issues you mention could be solved, they be solved by Rosslyn. And besides, cities without height restrictions have the same affordability issues so the issues you cite are not caused by height restrictions.

[@TheStrangeBloke]

​@@stevensmith2078 "If people want to build tall buildings they would simply not build them in my backyward." Literal NIMBYism. Places that don't build to the height restriction usually have other restrictions like Chevy Chase. Sure, densifying such areas would be great. Yeah, Rosslyn does absorb some of the demand for space from DC. But neither of these places are downtown DC which is where the greatest demand/shortfall is. And IDK what you're talking about. Roslyn, Tyson's Corner, etc. are beautiful spaces. Much of DC is very much so not beautiful, and a truly dense urban core would generate a ton of revenue for the city and let them invest in these spaces, while also alleviating some of the horrible rent pressure and homelessness that people experience.

[@ekszentrik]

The low skyline really does give DC a bit of a "stately" feeling, which is more than fitting.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

It's worth mentioning when talking about DC that DC used to be bigger! Alexandria and Arlington were once part of DC. DC's shape is the way it is because it used to be a full diamond ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia in accordance with the Residence Act adopted in July 1790. However, the Virginian side returned to Virginia in 1847. This is because of several factors. Alexandria went into economic decline because of neglect by Congress as members from other parts of Virginia fought to prohibit funding for Alexandria projects in favor of projects in their home districts. Legislation required that no Federal buildings be built on the formerly Virginia side of the District (part of the compromise that created the Capitol), so it gained nothing in government workers or buildings. But the main factor was legislation was in the works to outlaw slave trading within DC, and slave auctions were some of Alexandria’s biggest businesses. DC feels European because it was designed by Parisian Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and was based on European models translated to American ideals. The entire city was built around the idea that every citizen was equally important, with a street grid system and wide diagonal avenues named after states radiating from Capitol Hill, then known as Jenkins Hill! These wide boulevards allowed for easy transportation across town and offered views of important buildings and common squares from great distances. The National Mall was designed as open to all corners, which was the complete opposite of the gardens of Versailles in his native France where only royalty and nobility accessed. L'Enfant placed Congress on a high point with a commanding view of the Potomac rather than a leader's palace on a hill like in Europe. A century after L'Enfant conceived an elegant capital, Washington was still far from complete. In 1901, the Senate formed the McMillan Commission, a team of architects and planners who updated the capital based largely on L'Enfant's original framework. They planned an extensive park system, and the Mall was cleared and straightened. Reclaimed land dredged from the river expanded the park to the west and south, making room for the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. Some of L'Enfant's plans, including a huge waterfall cascading down Capitol Hill, were still never realized.

[@itspranavk]

Great video! One of the biggest aspects I felt was missing in the video was the political dynamic between DC, MD, and VA. Unlike most major cities, the DC metro area spans MD and VA (two states with representation in Congress -- each with their own tax structures, incentives, etc. for companies) and DC (a "state" with no representation where a congressman from Idaho can meddle with local legislation). For eg, the tech boom in NOVA (Northern Virginia) is primarily driven by low tax rates (compared to DC), subsidies from VA gov, and access to a large talent pool of highly educated workers in the DMV

[@tymiller176]

Exactly. With the complicated political situation between these 3 places, I'm surprised it's as well connected as it is.

[@itspranavk]

@@tymiller176 IMHO the real dark side of the DMV's success is the political mess. WMATA has to beg MD and VA every year for money because they lack a dedicated funding source, no traffic enforcement reciprocity between DC, MD, and VA, etc.

[@tymiller176]

@@itspranavk Exactly. DC has to do this dance with Congress approving their stuff, and dealing with VA and MD for everything. Diving into that process, even if through the lens of transit, would be interesting.

[@itspranavk]

@@tymiller176 Not to mention Republicans in Congress are actively trying to ban DC from using automated traffic enforcement and banning right on red.

[@ZVDhunter861]

Something not talked about enough. The substantial growth that Loudoun County has seen is a result of the factors you just mentioned

[@jonathanstensberg]

Soft disagree on this one. Fundamentally, polycentrism is good for a major urbanized area. It can be argued that Washington’s polycentrism is artificial, that Washington’s primary center is too weak, and that Tyson’s a prime example of the wrong way to do polycentrism. However, these are not good arguments against polycentrism itself. While polycentrism presents challenges for some systems, so too does the hyperconcentration of economic activity in a small area. It is precisely the challenges of a hyperconcentrated central business district that naturally induces polycentrism in the first place.

[@mohammedsarker5756]

Polycentrism would be fine if we had the ability to expand transit at a reasonable cost to make multiple ring-shaped transit lines like Moscow and other cities do. Considering how much of a struggle getting the Silver and now the Purple Line built, polycentrism basically means less accessibility until we can get transit costs down

[@theevilmoppet]

Polycentrism is *theoretically* fine, but it makes it much harder to quickly establish the most needed sections of a network - the network itself must also be polycentric to achieve the needed coverage. A city with largely uneven density means a number of areas that really, really, really easily and obviously justify rapid transit. That means less time spent identifying the most useful corridors and less lines needed for an expansion that reaches far more people. WMATA can't do that, because DC is uniformly medium density. There are areas that are more dense and less dense, but far less so than a city with identifiable areas of high density, and that means WMATA has to do a lot more to extend itself to the same amount of riders. That's fine, *if* you live somewhere like Beijing or Santiago that has shown itself to be adept at constructing lots of metro (both new lines and extensions), fast, and cheap, and has a lot of political will for it, but precisely none of that applies to pretty much any city in the US, which makes a good polycentric city hard to fully achieve in the US.

[@theevilmoppet]

I love DC, but the lack of extremely high density sub-areas is certainly a significant barrier to extending the system with relatively few projects.

[@tubeguylee-gf1tu]

Yeah the issue isnt the height limit, its wide and large us blocks without enough backroads and lots of lower density units still in the area. 13 stories is plenty tall to get a better population density than 11,535 per sqmi. On top of that the issue with density is one a lot of dense NA cities like NYC face and thats how outer neighborhoods and inner suburbs immediately fall off a cliff. If neighboring cities and towns actually let themselves densify instead of building a little office core along large arterial roads then it would resolve a lot of the housing problems we have.

[@paxundpeace9970]

​@@mohammedsarker5756It is possible if it gets build.

[@matthewconstantine5015]

I'm mostly on the same page with you about DC (I live in the area & used to commute to downtown for years. My wife still does). You touched on it near the end, but not only are there large swaths of the city that don't even come close to reaching the height limits, there's a TON of potential for infill development. You don't have to get too far north in the city before you see neighborhoods that look like stereotypical, single family home with a lawn, North American suburbs. Not to say it would never be a good idea to remove the height limits, but there's so, so, so much that could be done before you'd have to. Especially considering that you've got Rosslyn, Crystal City, Silver Spring, etc. right next door. I mean, I think it's faster to get from Metro Center to Rosslyn than it is to get to U Street. It takes me an hour to get from my front door to my old job near Chinatown & I'm 20 miles out of town. I know folks who live within the city limits who have similar length commutes, because they're not served by the Metro & have winding, multi-bus trips. For convenience of travel, I'd rather live in Ballston than up by the Arboretum, for example. AND, there's tons of empty office & retail in the core of the city, because of terrible policy from a grossly inept mayor & council, federal meddling, and stupidly high rents. I get a chuckle out of folks blaming recent uptick blips in crime and COVID on the Downtown area emptying out, when the process started almost a decade ago. When I worked on F St, my options for lunch used to get smaller about once a month as places reached the end of their lease, couldn't afford to re-up it, and nothing moved in to replace them. There are storefronts within a couple blocks of Metro Center that have been vacant for a decade. Even the place I worked at, which employed a lot of people, left the area about five years ago, when its lease was up. Much of the building it was in remains empty. There is an absolutely mind-blowing amount of unused space in the core of DC.

[@johnp1937]

I disagree with your assessment about downtown DC "emptying out." The upscale retail stores and boutiques downtown (Hermes, Gucci, etc.) are actually doing stronger post pandemic according the Washington Post. The article was from a few weeks ago. Earlier today I was near the intersection of 9th and NY Ave NW, and there were a lot of tourists, locals, and office works enjoying a beautiful day in the city shopping, eating, and going to museums. Not sure about the profitability of the downtown flagship Macy's directly above the Metro Center stop, but I do hope that remains a strong retail anchor. F Street near Macy's lost some retail during the pandemic, but the corridor is gaining a flagship Mango, a Barcelona-based department store, in the former J Crew space. So downtown DC is really not a retail ghost town. The U.S. has far too many of those empty urban centers, as shops and cafes abandoned downtowns for suburban malls 30 to 40 years ago. But retail and offices alone won't sustain U.S. downtowns; and so, D.C. and local developers are actively pursuing office to residential conversions where feasible.

[@matthewconstantine5015]

​@@johnp1937 I think you've sort of hit my point, which I likely didn't present well. What we have downtown is big, expensive, chain stores. The kinds of things you could find in any high end mall. There are very few businesses, other than José Andrés's restaurants and museums, that you would need to come to DC to experience. There's almost nothing local. The local restaurants that are there often only survive for one lease cycle. And I'm not wrong about empty store fronts. I worked on F St. for 5 years, and there were storefronts that were empty the whole time I was there, and having passed through the neighborhood a few weeks ago, are still empty. The place I worked in took up most of a city block, and in the 4 years since they left, only a tiny fraction of it has been rented out. There are plenty of people. The narrative that some media folks try to push that DC is empty and there's nobody around is total BS. There are plenty of people. But when folks ask for "what's a non-museum DC thing that I need to check out?" Unless it's José Andrés, I'm sending them out of the downtown and into the neighborhoods where some local flavor remains. Expensive chain stores don't really help the local area. They're not active members of the community. Most of the money they make is funneled out of the area into corporate bank accounts. Their employees are usually paid the lowest amount possible and considered disposable. But they're willing to pay hyper-inflated rents. So they make property owners happy.

[@johnp1937]

That’s also a problem in the UK. The rents are too high for dynamic, interesting, and home-grown retail on the major commercial high streets. One U.S. city, Portland, Ore., has bucked this trend. While their downtown has chain stores like Nordstrom, most establishments are locally owned boutiques, especially towards the western end of downtown. Rents are affordable and since there is no sales or restaurant tax, locally-owned establishments flourish there.

[@1038bro]

a vacancy tax is a good idea for sure

[@jamalgibson8139]

Can you describe the terrible policy that the mayor and council passed? I'm not trying to troll, just curious on the history. Thanks!

[@dudeonthasopha]

Living in DC I already know raising the height limit would be very unlikely. Upzoning is slowly happening, and it's the reason Noma has transformed into a new population and office center but needs to be greatly increased.

[@Matty002]

crazy how we figured how ho make cities work centuries ago and then america just went 'but what if they were worse?'

[@davisyewell1795]

DC’s downtown is extremely strong and is one of the largest in the US by employment. The height limit has promoted uniform density and positive changes to the zoning code in the city. If the downtown were any “stronger” the transit system would be over capacity, during peak commuting days the metro was at standing room only in peak directions even with a train every 3 minutes during rush hour. The polycentrism is positive to the region and even the “suburbs” are extremely dense and not all the sprawling American suburbs people are used to. Lumping in Baltimore too you’ll understand why shoulder stations like new Carrollton are seeing tons of development and transit expansion. DC’s downtown can be thought to extend to places like rosslyn as it’s less than 10 minutes by train from metro center.

[@Victor-kh5rh]

DC is denser than the surrounding area, despite having a height limit. Rather than building high rises in the district I’d rather have Fairfax and Montgomery county build to DCs density.

[@cxvzf]

Great point! Once a majority realizes single family zoning is not realistic for everywhere maybe we’ll have hope.

[@ZVDhunter861]

Not to mention there is a lot of potential for Alexandria and prince George’s to upzone and density neighborhoods around transit

[@owenwillard5409]

I agree. That’s easier said than done though. Especially considering that for that to happen, current home owners would have to upend their neighborhoods and sell their homes. While I agree that density is the only direction for the future, it’s much easier said than done..

[@solofemmenoire9108]

I hope DC never repeals the height act. It’s my most favorite thing about the city that it never became a measuring contest for skyscraper obsessed architects

[@TheStrangeBloke]

DC has one of the worst homelessness problems outside the west coast. The height limit forces commercial buildings to sprawl, and along with all the federal buildings and monuments actual space for human beings to live is in short supply. I like the aesthetics too but its morally unjustifiable to have no tall buildings in such a large city. IMO, we should take a page from paris and build a special skyscraper district in a place where it won't be obtrusive. In Paris this is called "the defense" and it looks like a big wall rising up behind the eiffel tower. We could do a similar thing with the land around lincoln park behind the capitol. Adding a few million square feet of office space (or residential) would do a lot to mitigate rents elsewhere in the city.

[@usera6014]

@@TheStrangeBloke that already exists and is called rosslyn lmao, Virginia and tysons corners got the """"skyscrapers"""" (they are short asf still)

[@TheStrangeBloke]

@@usera6014 If it exists way outside the city center in Virginia there is clearly demand for it to exist to an even greater extent in the city itself.

[@usera6014]

@@TheStrangeBloke yes of course it does, that's why most buildings in central dc have around the same max height

[@scpatl4now]

Actually, all the development in VA is the main catalyst that's turning VA blue. The population in Northern VA is well educated and leans to the left. Seriously though, I had a friend with a condo in Arlington and there was a metro stop literally beneath his building. Even if it is one line (there it was 2), that's still well connected. Also, for anyone who doesn't live in DC, it is one of the most confusing places in the US to drive, and it is very easy to get lost making just one wrong turn. Everything is centered on The Capital bldg so a lot of the streets have the same names with "NE", "SW" after them yet they are on opposite sides of the city

[@travelsofmunch1476]

This is a weak thesis. Treating Rossyln-Ballston, Silver Spring and Bethesda like they are some far flung suburbs in simply inaccurate. For the day to day DC resident Rossyln IS part of the urban fabric of the DMV same as DC. Skyscrapers can be a Quality of Life issue there is a reason why Europe has dedicated CBD's outside of their downtowns, like DC. I will take a dense, lively european style city center over a tall, dead, non-dense American city center every day of the week.

[@stevensmith2078]

@@jyutzlerDC’s beauty is due to the low skyline. It also has lots of residents downtown, especially in comparison to say Dallas, Denver, Saint Louis, Atlanta and countless other cities that have truly dead cores. It is arguably the most beautiful large city in the US without feeling large and impersonal. Build skyscrapers outside of the beauty of the city as in Europe. Besides Washington is one of the largest office building markets in the world. It’s built well just not tall.

[@casanova11ize]

I can tell you never ever been to dc .EVER! Saying not dendes is crazy. There are atleast2 million peolple in the coty day or night​@@jyutzler

[@stevensmith2078]

@@casanova11ize kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKG4ZKtqjNOXoqssi=QW8VMT3HcJIjwj9o DC is by far more densely populated than the surrounding areas. The commenter is strangely upset by DC’s formal boundaries, which are irrelevant, because they encompass less than 1 million people. SMH.

[@fleurdelispens]

DC resident here, and at the moment, downtown DC actually has plenty of open office space. Thanks pandemic. The main issue we have is a lack of housing, though that is slowly changing.

[@matthewconstantine5015]

I really hope so. I'm stuck out in the suburbs & hate it. But prices in the city are surreal.

[@DavidISandler]

DC resident here too -yeah its a little odd to say DC lacks office space right now and needs skyscrapers, what it really needs is downtown that isn't just one giant federal office park. The Wharf, Navy Yard, and NoMa are also massive new core office regions... why is this totally ignored? furthmore they all have amazing transit, biking infrastructure, offices, housing, and retail that make them far more interesting places to work/live/spend time. Downtown DC needs a reinvention but it certainly is not lacking for office space

[@willythemailboy2]

It wouldn't be an urbanism video if they weren't ignoring some aspect of reality.

[@vrf1675]

But there's Arlington, just over the river, basically in the city, way more density in development last 20 years than Tysons Corner. It's a city with so many really charming walkable historic neighborhoods, with fantastic architecture that is rare in North America outside of the north east, Its a great town, DC deserves way more love from you guys (and I'm a New Yorker saying that)

[@tomgeraci9886]

I’d have to disagree on some of this. While Tysons is a good example of *bad* job sprawl, Arlington’s job centers are about as close to downtown DC as Cambridge and Boston, or Midtown NYC and Brooklyn or Hoboken are. Arlington has some of the strongest examples of TOD anywhere, and as long as more high rises are constructed there, it’ll absorb up the demand for highway-side business along the Beltway.

[@AnotherDuck]

While I've not studied the topic, I got the impression of cherry picking locations for the purpose of their argument.

[@tomgeraci9886]

@@AnotherDuck I don’t even understand why they cherrypicked Rosslyn. It’s developed into a stronger CBD than downtown DC, directly across from the “old” downtown and highly accessible by mass transit. Tysons I can understand because of its sprawl and distance from downtown, but even Tysons has its pluses, and is much more urban than almost every other highway-side office park elsewhere in the US

[@djrocko410]

I'm glad y'all did a video on DC. I think it's one of the best metro areas for TOD. I wanted to also notes that Fairfax county is developing Tysons into a walkable neighborhood with the goal of 100k residents and 200k jobs over the next 30 years. Also, Prince George's county in Maryland (majority black) wants to develop TOD around the blue line.

[@itspranavk]

Unfortunately PG county banned dense housing outside of TOD zones.

[@eugenetswong]

That's exciting news. Thank you for sharing.

[@bjdon99]

The better example of the new urbanism than Tysons is Reston. That is a place seeing huge growth now that it too has Silver Line stops.

[@derekbyrd49]

@@itspranavk that's not true, it was proposed but got shot down by PG county council 2023.

[@jaredbarlow9227]

The issue with the development around stations west of ballston(reston, Tyson’s, etc.) is there are huge wide roads with fast drivers and parking around the station. It often takes 10+ mins by foot to reach the closest office, residential building, or restaurant from the station and the walk is dangerous for pedestrians having to cross 6 lanes of drivers going 45+ mph

[@trainluvr]

This is my favorite channel for transit and urbanism. No talking head, no stock footage, memes or distracting appeals. I heard that the soil conditions in DC made tall buildings uneconomic, at least in earlier times.

[@tymiller176]

Yes and no. I like this channel too. But they sometimes miss the mark of the "spirit" of a city that they only visited and never lived in, like in this video.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

@@tymiller176 That's way too vague. This video was about the height limit in DC harming transit accessibility and ridership. Do you have any specific disagreements with anything we said?

[@louiszhang3050]

As a DC/nova resident who frequently uses public transit here, I think raising the DC skyline is impossible. People are way too attached to it, and to be honest, I am too. I think 80% of the problems mentioned could just be fixed by making TOD less car-friendly. Aka, not the problem with TOD, but with Tysons. There is a HUGE gap in walkability and transit share between somewhere like Tysons and Ballston. The remaining 20% could be solved by building out ring lines.

[@CannedFishFiles]

Skylines change all the time. Everybody everywhere always hates the new buildings. Old people eventually cool off and young people grow up with them "always having been there" so it is what it is.

[@szurketaltos2693]

You offer up ring lines as a solution as if that's easy or cheap. So, when is the purple line finishing? And when would it be a true ring line?

[@TheStrangeBloke]

I'm a DC metro area resident and I really hate this attitude. The stuff you're talking about is incredibly hard to accomplish. It should be done, but the height restriction is immoral and should be removed as well. Stopping so much construction when we have massive homelessness is unjustifiable to me.

[@louiszhang3050]

​@@TheStrangeBloke Single family zoning prevents a lot more housing from being built that some height restriction law. Did you know 59% of DC's land area is zoned exclusively for single family homes? (source: plandc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/Comprehensiveplan/007_Single%20Family%20Housing%20Report.pdf) And that's just in DC. Don't get me even started on the suburbs. Also, I'm suggesting road diets, widening sidewalks, and building out bike lanes. Are these "incredibly hard to accomplish"?

[@louiszhang3050]

​@@szurketaltos2693 They won't be easy or cheap, but they provide much more benefit apart the topic of the video - the biggest one being adding resiliency and making the system less commuter-focused. Even if DC had a New York skyline, we'd still need a radial line badly. I'm not going to accept the fact that America sucks at building transit as a reason not to do something that will massively benefit transit.

[@nickberry5520]

Philadelphia used to have an unofficial height restriction until it was broken by Liberty Place. I think if the height limit were removed in downtown DC (which it wont) there would immediately be proposals for very tall towers on the the scale of Chicago or NYC. Fun to think about. Philly has its own suburban job centers though, the tallest being Conshohocken, which is accessible by SEPTA's Regional Rail. I'd be interested to see your take on Philly's successes and failures.

[@nich2475]

Completely disagree! The missing middle is more than enough, especially if pursued in areas with very low density like capitol hill. No need for giant skyscrapers as we can attain even higher density than NYC if we model DC after cities like Paris.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Are you concerned with job sprawl pushing employment out to places like Tysons, or does that just not bother you?

[@insertchannelnamehere8685]

The thing is, it's not the height limit that's driving job sprawl; it's likely that even if buildings in DC could be as tall as they wanted, plenty of companies would still locate in VA suburbs for tax/legal reasons. Plus, plenty of cities with no height limits downtown (e.g. Atlanta, Miami, SF, even Chicago when you look at the numbers) still have most of their jobs out in the suburbs. I do agree with making suburban development better, but to act like the height restriction is what's causing decentralized development sort of neglects the reality. Office vacancy in DC is also very high, so even if the limit was raised, it's unlikely skyscrapers would be built there anytime soon.

[@bedinskiboi]

I feel like the solution is to work on interconnecting the entire area, making it easier to commute between all of dc's centers. Polycentrism is not necesarily a bad thing... if you look at european cities, most have height limits stricter than this, but also have more evenly spread out transit systems and more widespread density, and this is a good model imo

[@EliStettner]

Second this.

[@CrazyDash9]

Exactly. Cities such as Paris may have a height limit, but they are able to supply most areas with public transit. Just look at a map of the Paris Metro. All lines are so close together. You are always within a few minute walk of a metro stop. And that’s just the center of Paris. Everything outside main city center is heavily interconnected by trams, suburban trains, and the RER. And throughout all, the height of most of Paris is similar. The DC Metro is a good system, but it is nowhere the size of the Paris Metro. They gotta expand the system out more to connect all of these dense areas together.

[@dlg569]

The Height of Buildings Act is solely responsible for the lack or surface parking lots in DC and for the great neighborhoods that surround downtown. Look at every other US city that has skyscrapers surrounded by poverty. DC doesn’t have that.

[@SkipGole]

I agree with your comments about making centers more dense. However, I think people are afraid of how a change to D.C.’s density might change its character and livability. I live in Bethesda, 12 miles out, and there’s been significant infill here in the past 40 years. The density is higher but the connections via transit from my house, which’s 5 km away are difficult. This is exactly what ‘Oh, The Urbanity’ is talking about. The most dependable way is by bicycle, but there’s no place to securely lock up. Other methods include the J2 bus, which runs every 10 minutes. However, I need to walk .5 mile (1Km?) to get to it. A closer bus is a 3 minute walk but doesn’t run on weekends. Public transit is not seen as a necessity, and cars on roadways are seen as a necessity. The point is that downtown D.C. should have much taller buildings, which would enable the Metro (subway) to be more viable, and this would allow for more support and better service; in other words, we would have a much better, more reliable network.

[@jdfromdc]

Thanks for doing DC! I live on Capitol Hill, the walking and biking options taking you throughout the city are really incredible. Two airports on the metro lines. Lots of parks and open space. So much history and beauty. DC is an awesome city for public transit.

[@quinnmurph2750]

Technically, THREE airports on transit lines, as you can reach BWI Airport on MARC and Amtrak trains from Union Station, which itself is on Metro. 😊

[@JimBrownski]

@@quinnmurph2750plus the B30 bus from Greenbelt which is only 30 minutes if from BWI

[@DrunkenFive985]

As some one who lives car free in dc and has switched to a job in the far off suburbs nearby, I can say that it does kinda suck to be car free and commute out there. Especially with the recent changes to the fairfax connector, it can take 1 hour and 50 minutes to get to my work with transit, and that includes being a block away from my nearest metro station. Many jobs that I looked at were all decently far away from transit and oftentimes I ended up needing to use an infrequent bus to finish the connection. Although not awful, it can be really annoying at times

[@quinnmurph2750]

I love this channel, but there are too many problems with this hypothesis. People LOVE the height limit, with the Washington Monument and Capitol being dinstict standouts, just like the Eifffel Tower and Sacre-Coeur in Paris. Despite being the 3rd largest office market in the USA after Manhattan and Chicago's Loop, essentially all buildings and streets and downtown parks have equal exposure to sunlight, which is amazing. The city's scale is also a big part of its tourism draw -- a gigantic economic driver for the city. Finally, as an architect working in DC: DC is not a great place for high design. A LOT of very mediocre office buildings are built downtown, but because they're short, you don't see them until you're directly in front of them. This is a great thing! ALSO: The height limit doesn't reduce residential density. In the 1950s, DC housed nearly 1 million residents. In 2024, we're closer to 650k residents. So, DC can reasonably house up to 50% more people without building towers, as the height limit existed at DC's population peak. (Regarding the Cairo hotel: local lore posits that it was the fact that the Cairo was a hotel for blacks, and whites didn't like the idea of blacks "looking down on them" that further codified the height restrictions.)

[@bearcubdaycare]

What's the fascination with creating central congestion? Decentralized Paris is lovely. In centralized cities, the area around central train stations is usually fairly dire. City Nerd just posted a video rating DC as one of the top ten cities that balance affordability with transit and walkability. Maybe its decentralization helps achieve that; certainly didn't prevent that.

[@ruedelta]

DC was top 11, but close enough. The Purple Line is going to solve a lot of my issues with the polycentric nature of the area. Not to mention, different clusters have different specializations. This is in itself a pretty neat orientation as the clusters have room to grow, so if the federal healthcare research economy grows, the NIH and supporting agencies/businesses can continue to build there and fill in gaps.

[@szurketaltos2693]

The 20 arrondissements + la defense is smaller than DC proper. AFAIK Paris has nothing close to Tyson's, la defense is more like arlington in position and transit access.

[@justinmelao3434]

Paris is very much centralized, it is not polycentric. Paris just has a large core.

[@GeoMeridium]

I'm not sure DC's maximum skyline height is really to blame, so much as the large expanse of detached houses/low-rise townhouses less than a mile from the core. High rises have a significantly cost per square foot for construction (there is no such thing as an affordable high-rise condo), so if you can zone your city to stay under 20 stories and prevent suburban sprawl within the city-proper, that's ideal. Also, job sprawl is a good thing because it ensures that cities don't devolve into a hierarchical urban configuration, in which poor commuters end up commuting much longer distances than wealthy residents. A polycentric city tends to be a lot more affordable than cities with a single core. It doesn't have to be at odds with walkability (Netherlands is a good example), and allows for arrangements where denser transit oriented forms of development can still be close to nature.

[@JohnJFebreeze]

As a dmv native, it’s important to know that place (particularly D and V) LOATHES poor people

[@dezwollenaartjes]

I live in a Dutch city about an hour away from The Hague, with around 130,000 inhabitants, growing. The city only has two real skyscrapers and they are outside of the inhabited areas (next to the highway), but the population density in our city center with only (old) 2-5 story buildings is the same as the job density in the city center of Oklahoma City, for example, where multiple ginormous skyscrapers stand. If you build with more density, but less height, your city (often) becomes more livable and less public transit is needed, because a walk of bike ride is more convenient than waiting for a bus or train, on small distances, like going to the supermarket. For longer distances that does not apply, obviously, and it does mean that you have to make it safe to walk or bike around, instead being obliged to take the car.

[@kjh23gk]

You're not supposed to say good things about The Netherlands here.

[@PaulClipMaster]

DC proper still has a lot of land available for commercial development that is free or not being used to it's max compacity. For instance, office buildings that don't reach the full height limit they are allowed, along with areas being used as parking lots where a building could exist instead.

[@Jelly452527]

Cool to see my neighborhood featured in a video. I'm glad you mentioned the commute into Tysons, because I do it often. It takes me about an hour to Metro but only 25 minutes to drive. On top of that the trip costs me $7 in fare during peak times whereas I avoid the toll on I-66 because I'm going the wron direction. Every signal you recieve in NOVA is telling you to drive unless you happen to live and work on the same metro line. We really need better connectivity through the region between the orang/silver lines and the yellow/blue lines. Bring the purple line to NOVA!

[@Sordesman]

I live in DC and can confirm that there are endless office vacancies downtown. There is not a shortage causing people to move out to the burbs.

[@starventure]

Gee, wonder why businesses are reluctant to move there? It's a riddle, isn't it?

[@bobi7152]

Important to note is that 13 stories really isn’t that short - realistically the majority of buildings won’t be much higher than that even if it were allowed. That being said, as someone commuting to a suburban office campus, it would be nice if my job moves in the city.

[@SigmaRho2922]

We should allow high rise buildings in the Metro Center and Gallery Place districts with up to 20-25 stories.

[@robertlunderwood]

Gallery Place already has an arena on top of it and Metro Center is only a couple of blocks away from that and highly developed.

[@fatviscount6562]

This video misses the mark, as Mr Martin’s diatribes often do. It shows you don’t understand Greater Washington. Jobs don’t ist sprawl like peanut butter on bread. They cluster. More importantly, they cluster by industry: astronomers cluster around NASA in Maryland, defense contractors around Chrystal City, Networking jobs along the Dulles Toll Road corridor. Each of these clusters are the size of a Canadian city. My friends working in different industries live near their own clusters. Given that most of them prefer to live in low-density sprawl, it is better to have them sprawl closer to their cluster rather than having to commute all the way downtown. Having these satellite cities consequently lowered the demand and cost for land downtown. Higher average density is better, but high rises become bottlenecks. Outsiders don’t realize much of the District of Columbia is low density with poor transit access. Areas such as the Massachusetts Ave Corridor can be developed with much higher density before DC has the need to reconsider the height limit.

[@jfmezei]

You forgot to mention that Washington is a planned capital city. It was designed by French architect Pierre Charles l'Enfant, hired by George Washington to design the city. And one major reason for the height limitation is to maintain the integrity of that plan. And as a government town, it makes sense to keep non-government jobs away from the capital district to provent government sprawl (except for 3 letter agencies that want to be tucked away). There is already competition for space coming from lobbying agencies (yes, it is an industry in Washington). Also, the legal status of the city makes it "pinned" by politicians and no business wants to be stuck having to deal with politicians to get construction permit for instance. Much easier to locate outside the "DC" jurisdiction into a state that is more business friendly. Hence without o much demand, there isn't the need to build tall towers. And for the areas around the Potomac, there are hard height limits because it is on the very final approach to DCA airport. Paris also has no tall skyscrapers in its city centre and makes it more inviting to live in the core and work in suburbs. la Défense area was built for tall towers and currently the target of huge transit developments to make it easier to commute to there as the existing metro line was woefully inadequate for the growing worker population. There are a number of buildings which are plenty high. If you look at the Watergate complex right on the river, it has just the right height without overwhelming everything else near it (namely the Kennedy Center). There is a big difference between doing a study using Google Maps and actually being on site to get a feel for the city. Another issue is that the city used to be larger, including for instance Alexandria and Arlington on the Virgina site and some on the Maryland side (which is why WMATA serves those area due to historically being a "part" of Washington even if in a different state). - not many urban transit systems span multiple states. So those former Washigton areas inherited the plan with no tall buildings as well. Yet, f you look at Bethesda, it has office towers but they are not extremely tall. (there comes a point of diminishing returns on tall buildings when more and more space needs to be devoted to elevators). Washington is on a far more human scale which is one reason it is a great place to visit. Tysons's Corners is a young city surrounded by highways. It was a big deal (and cause for delays) to have the silver metro line deviate from its "in middle of highway" alignment and go into the centre of this stroad-like concrete city. It is partly elevated and partly tunneled until it rejoins the highway to the airport. Residential areas are on the outside of the circumference bounded by the massive highways. If you look at Alexandria you will find much older city and allowing tall buildings there, in Georgetown or other old parts is akin to allowing a tall office tower right in the middle of Old Montréal. The old stately homes of Georgetowns are owned by people with power and they would never allow that priceless neighbouhood to be destroyed. Heck, even Mr Google points to the stairs for the Exorcist in Georgetown. The C&O Canal in the area has high historical value when you combine it with the Capital Crescent bike path (former Baltimore & Ohio tracks) due to the history of all the attempts by competing transport companies (water and rail) to serve Washington and tackle the Potomac River obstacle. (Penn central won and has the bridge across the river). It would be a real shame to just hand all of this to developpers who would build style-less condo towers just to make money. The whole place has historical value.

[@jeffjung8186]

9:48 is a perfect example of job sprawl not existing on a metro line. Mark Center in Alexandria, VA is shown and is a major location for many businesses. It features a bus station with many bus lines feeding into it, but as you can see the highway right nearby is rather large and there are other large roads connecting the area that encourage commuters to drive and the congestion as a result is pretty bad. My job relocated from this area and just happens to be near a metro station now. Being able to commute without a car has been such a benefit!

[@Ray03595]

DC is one of the best cities in the country imo. Just make it easier to travel between different areas. The mayor has also gone hard on making it less car friendly. City is changing rapidly and I think it’s on a great path. And love that it feels distinctly different than most other US cities. In terms of downtowns it’s light years ahead of your typical “parking lot city” that plagues the US. Also think it’s worth noting all the government workers in the city and how much of the population they make up and are mostly all working in and around the same area so idk about thr need to prioritize office space so much downtown

[@yacetube]

In many American citys, downtown jobs development is limited because of parking lots talking all the space ....

[@AnotherDuck]

The more I watch these American city videos, the more I think parking lots is the biggest issue, and getting rid of a majority of them would be a vast improvement by itself, just by letting everything else fill in naturally.

[@davisdavis468]

i dont think thats as much the case with downtown dc

[@dctraining407]

I think this entire video would be perfect if the word office was just replaced with residential. Downtown DC has massive office vacancy rates since covid and property values are plummeting, severely affecting tax revenues for the city. It's just not a place where a height limit is what's limiting growth in office space-but absolutely for residential/retail commercial

[@Fellowtellurian]

Setting the bar for a commute to 1 hour is INSANE. That is 2 hours of day spent in transit. A commute should be no more than 15-30 minutes. It should be illegal to expect a worker to commute more than that and not pay them.

[@bjdon99]

“Illegal?” Where a worker lives is up to him. I work in DC. I go in about 3 days / wk. I bought a house further out as it gave me more land house and a newer house for my dollar. It takes me 1h15m from my door to my office each way using the route I normally take. I don’t complain about it as it lets me live in a nicer place

[@alegsb3943]

At least in Washington, for most government jobs, they DO pay you for transit. Plus, if you were to drive from the suburbs to the middle of dc, it would still take you an hour, not counting bad traffic. You would also have to pay more for parking than you do for taking the metro. Taking the train is also a lot less stressful. You aren’t getting to work in 15-30 minutes unless you already live near downtown.

[@ybennehoff]

The height limit is a red herring, other reforms around land use and regional coordination are much more impactful. The increase in density to many of the DC neighborhoods and better coordination with close-in MD and VA suburbs would do much more to decrease sprawl. The fractured self-interested governments drive so much of the sprawl and this dynamic should be more of a focus rather than the much over-hyped height limit. MD, VA, and DC compete rather than coordinate we are all worse off for it since the competition comes in the form of massive subsidies to billionaires.

[@CaradhrasAiguo49]

Another problem with Tysons is the multiple stories of parking at the bottom of high-rises. Looking at you, Capital One (McLean station), and Adaire (Spring Hill)...

[@danielbaev3080]

Americans can't understand why europeans have circle lines: Berlin (S41/42), Paris (6+2, tram T3a/b and line 15 under construction) and so on. It's fine to put jobs outside of downtown while having REALLY good transit. Look at RER A line, its just 10 mins from the center of Paris by 100 seconds frequent train from the center pf Paris (that goes 100 km/h, I don't know how much is it in miles) anyway, next level of good transit is actually building orbital transit lines

[@ivans_in_danger]

I am currently living this exact life. Living in DC but my job is just outside of the beltway. I would love to be able to commute to work via WMATA but my office is not close to a metro stop and Metro+bus would be an hour each way (and $6 one way trip) vs a 20 min dive in the morning and a 35-45 min drive home. I think the big issue is not so much the height limitations themselves but the lack of proper zoning aspect. Places like Ward 3 desperately need to be up-zoned. It should also be noted that with the normalization of WFH much of DC's downtown is still empty while rent and purchasing costs for commercial properties have still remained artificially high due to corporate tax loopholes and policy mismanagement. Right now it is cheaper for many developers to sit on empty buildings and receive tax breaks than to drop prices reducing the value of their property to bring companies in.

[@graysonarthur70]

At one point in time I was commuting from the Ballston-Rosslyn area to Tysons and once the novelty of taking the metro wore off, I would generally drive to work. Driving had a couple advantages, but the primary one being that it was faster than the metro, even in heavy traffic. But also, the "TOD" in Tysons is a joke, as shown in the video, it is primarily serving the people who have expensive cars over transit users. I mean look at where the exits of the metro stations take you. The stations take you directly to among other places a strip mall parking lot (I'm not joking), a car dealership, the mall, a sidewalk of a wide arterial street, or fucking nothing within a 5 minute walk.

[@soledieairvideos5974]

As someone who lives in DC, I get why development is good, but I also think it’s important to keep DC’s history and much of the area in and around downtown is historic and personally really nice to look at architecturally.

[@conorreynolds9739]

When I lived in DC, I commuted out to Ballston, so this tracks with my anecdotal experience. Fastest way to commute was by bike even though my office was right by the metro station, although I never tried to drive (nowhere to park).

[@bluebox2000]

The wild card now with all cities is work-from-home which is destroying many urban centers and tax bases. DC had over 800,000 people in 1950, down to 572,000 in 2000. It finally started growing in again back to 689,000 in 2020, but work-from-home and the pandemic saw a small drop again in population. I don't support work from home as it's destroying businesses, transit and nightlife. How about a 35 hour work week of 7 hours per day, like the French. Of course workers who aren't from offices don't get these options at all. Open plan offices where people have to now face each other is why everyone hates being in the office. Bring back the cubicle.

[@hobog]

It's stations like East Falls Church that hurt the system more: major transit hubs that aren't adequately upzoned

[@danielkelly2210]

The last time they tried that (2010) NIMBYs squashed the upzoning idea. Maybe it's time for another go?

[@Kevin-xq2tv]

03:00 shows exactly whats wrong with yall US city planners

[@littlekirby6]

Before I watched the video, I was thinking that they could probably even keep the height limit if only they changed the zoning in the city (which you brought up). There are areas within the city with huge detached single family homes, which is crazy to me when you have a strict limit on your city boundaries.

[@qolspony]

I don't think it is a problem. DC is a very compact city. The metro was built not for commuters, but for tourists, legislators and lobbyists. Building taller buildings will result in a capacity issue on the metro. Remember, the metro was built as a quality way to transverse the city. Not as a major mass transit system. It is all about presentation. So tall buildings are not the right way to go. It is also why they charge zone fees for using this system. Because it is a premium system, not a mass transit system.

[@qolspony]

@crowmob-yo6ry hmmm. Or take the bus.

[@theaveragejoe5781]

Loved all these analytics! End the heights act!

[@linuxman7777]

Tokyo barely has a skyline same with most Japanese Cities. Mostly mid rise which is pretty good. Tokyo doesn't have a monolithic downtown, It has many many downtowns within the metro area. Marunouchi, Shinjuku, Shinagawa, Ikebukuro, Omiya, Yokohama, Shin-Yokohama, Chiba, and much much more. It can be time consuming but the metro ride is pleasant in Tokyo. So if you live in let's say Tsukuba in Ibaraki, it is easy to get to Akihabara and Marunouchi but harder to get to places like Shinjuku.

[@n.bastians8633]

Tokyo has one of the world's most centralized job markets. Another comment under this same video calls it a negative example precisely because of that.

[@illiiilli24601]

Tokyo just has a big downtown. Marunouchi, Shinjuku, Shinagawa, Ikebukuro, (Shibuya, Ueno, Akihabara) are pretty much all part of the same core downtown. That downtown dominates the job market of greater Tokyo. Though Yokohama/Shin-Yokohama, Chiba, and Omiya are outside of it, but again, they are definitely far and away dwarfed by the aforementioned area.

[@ImRezaF]

>Tokyo barely has a skyline What are you talking about ? Tokyo definitely have a skyline. If anything, it's one of the cities with the loosest height limit.

[@coleciervo5454]

I do wish Tyson's Corner was less car-centric. All of Montgomery County in MD is basically endless suburban hell now too; the car-centrism in the surrounding suburbs and exurbs is the main culprit.

[@AGNDJ]

DC is in my Top 3 cities since my visits there. I would go all in on the "aesthetic" of it being a truly walkable American/European city.

[@brycebundens6866]

THANK YOU for coming to DC and seeing our city beyond the memorials!!! There is some incredible urbanism here, and we are honored that you could experience it.

[@FullLengthInterstates]

hyper centralization of offices is why average commute times in Tokyo are some of the worst in the world despite being theoretically "mixed use" and having the best transit. Such extreme agglomeration is simply unnecessary, the value generated cannot possibly justify the destruction of people's time. Upzoning DC as a whole may be a good idea, but having some major job centers on the periphery is also a great outcome. Expanding transit by adding more loop lines will improve the availability of workers for the non central job centers

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Even connecting the Purple Line to Tysons (which would be a long way away if it ever happened at all) would not leave it anywhere near as transit-accessible as downtown DC or even Rosslyn.

[@Zedprice]

I'm not seeing any actual data to back up the possible costs you're describing here. If anything, the great success of DC's urbanism and transit with its height limit is evidence against your ideological opposition to height limits. If you can have a city this great maxing out at 13 stories, maybe we should admit that huge skyscrapers are a product of bad policy, not good urbanism.

[@nataliekhanyola5669]

Putting a cap on the height of apartment buildings is still problematic. The primary goal for any housing policy should be the ability to meet if not supersede the demand for housing and shelter. If that means you need your city to have 14 storey apartment buildings then so be it. Let's also not forget that Washington D.C like most American cities still suffers from sprawl.

[@msb2926]

@@nataliekhanyola5669 Curiously, the same people who justifiably take highway planners to task over induced demand when adding lanes never seem to stop to ask whether expanded affordable housing stock also causes a demand feedback loop.

[@EliStettner]

Yeah, building more housing will cause more people to move to an area. Population will grow until the marginal value of someone moving to a city is less than the cost to build a new dwelling. A study from Berkeley found that if housing restrictions were lifted in just NYC and the Baye Area, GDP would grow by 9.5%. And NYC’s population would triple.

[@Zedprice]

@@msb2926 This is not the case, because demand for housing maxes out at one dwelling for most individuals. Travel has a demand limit of about 1 hour, which is deeply complicated by decreasing travel times and the geometric growth of urban areas: additional highway length is squared for new area coverage, meaning as you expand highways further from the city, the number of people reached by those highways grows exponentially.

[@msb2926]

@@Zedprice But traffic has the same constraint - at any given time a single driver is only occupying one vehicle. And while the highway length increases linearly, the areal increase of "One More Lane" follows the same laws of exponentiation as sprawl generally.

[@ttopero]

I’d love to see a follow up video comparing the transit network for other international cities as to how they ensure their workers don’t need a car at all. Our sparse rail transit networks in this hemisphere make it challenging to live without a car, even if a train station is nearby home OR work-rarely by both.

[@markuserikssen]

I think there are a lot of good arguments in this video. However, I also have some different thoughts as well. As someone who was living in Stockholm, I was living in a suburb not far from the downtown area and my job was much further away from the downtown area, but well connected by public transport. My commute between home and my job was quicker than going downtown, and many other colleagues were in the same position. Companies may actually have a benefit when they are closer to employees in the suburbs. They may not attract people from other parts of the metropolitan area, but maybe that's not always needed. It also generates more money for the suburbs, if people hang around there to go for lunch, do shopping, etc. In Stockholm, a lot of people don't often go downtown because there are other hubs in the metropolitan area. Besides that, the office rents and housing prices are much lower in the suburbs.

[@KarolaTea]

Interesting video, thank you! I wonder if it would be possible to connect all those suburban office hubs to better public transit so they'd be just as easily accessible as downtown. Keep downtown a "culture and tourist" area, and dedicate other areas to offices or other industry, while making/keeping the whole city transit/bike friendly? Connecting the suburbs with each other seems like a good idea anyway. My (European) city also has a network that mainly connects everything to the centre, so if I want to get anywhere else I often have to go there first and change. Makes sense for some routes, but on others it's a rather annoying detour. And there's certain jobs you probably don't want right in the city centre (heavy industry mainly), but ideally those jobs should still be easily accessible from a wide area.

[@JaredDixon]

As a DC resident, I do love that we have a height restricted city core. It feels much more European.

[@letsgoOs1002]

Hey you entered my wheel house. You missed some huge information. Reston and Herndon are building huge around the metro systems. They also just added 7 new miles of 12 foot wide on both sides of the roads. Atleast in Reston it's pretty easy to get around without a car. Between ok buses very good bike path and several metro stops.

[@amateur_adventurist]

job density should be spread out in all part of the city, but it's the role of good transit that make it possible to get to destination without driving. we evey thing in centered in down town and suburb is only for houses, so this is exactly what we have now: a car infested city in which everyone drives

[@boxsterman77]

I think we are approaching this in too binary of a fashion. DC can increase its density AND preserve the sight-lines around the monumental core. The law could be changed to allow for progressively taller buildings as one moves away from the Capitol. In effect, that’s already accomplished across the Potomac, in Virginia Arlington and Alexandria. And there is SW and SE DC, unfairly maligned areas close to the central and ready for development.

[@earlwashburn1002]

Ottawa has similar height restrictions regarding building higher than the Parliament buildings. I'm not sure of the exact rules though, since there are several buildings taller now.

[@jfungsf882]

I would love to see both of you make a video on your thoughts on *Bill 96* in Quebec given your residence in Montreal. It would be insightful 👍

[@vegets2]

What about the concept of a 15-minutes city? If we don't have a more balanced urban area, it's not possible to achieve it

[@OhTheUrbanity]

It's great to have common amenities like groceries, cafes, and schools within 15 minutes but jobs are specialized enough that people are usually willing to commute longer for better pay or a role they enjoy more.

[@vegets2]

@@OhTheUrbanity commuting, as a daily routine, should be definitely included in a 15-minutes city proposal. If not, it totally misses the goal of the concept. Cities like Tokyo and Sao Paulo show that a polycentric metropolis is not just a good idea, but something possible to aim. The North American challenge is to densify areas around those suburbans job hubs

[@OhTheUrbanity]

@@vegets2 People move to large cities mainly for the large labour market. Why would you want to limit yourself to a much smaller number of jobs essentially within your neighbourhood?

[@vegets2]

@@OhTheUrbanity while we have unbalanced urban areas, our planet and environment are destroyed with high energy consumption. Of course that in a society where work is so specialized, there will always be an unequal distribution of employment options. But this does not mean that we should support this inequality and that we will reinforce it. I admit I can't see the 15-minute city working for everyone, but it is a feasible ideal for a vast majority

[@kc_1018]

I don't like having skyscrapers and government buildings mixing. Skyscrapers and high rises should be built in Arlington and Alexandria.

[@JoshuaHeagleDev]

When we visited DC, getting around was such a treat with the usually wide sidewalks, the bike friendly infrastructure and the convenience of the metro. I often think about the advanced walk which have signs indicating cyclists should also proceed, which is very different than Toronto. In Toronto it is popular for police to fine cyclists for crossing the road during an advanced walk.

[@MsMarmima]

Just looking at the footage, I'm not sure height limits are the issue, sooo many single family homes

[@MsMarmima]

Wow DC has more restrictions than I thought

[@definitelynotacrab7651]

Some great points. That purple line is cool to hear about, hopefully thats a concept that many other transit agencies copy.

[@GregOughton]

As a counter example: Paris, which is incredibly dense, walkable, and transit friendly even though the height restrictions are even lower in most areas

[@Killersanchez256]

Id love a video on why do Canadian cities have much more well developed downtowns. Why is it the Calgary has a much more impressive downtown than cities like Denver despite being similar? What policies change how downtowns remain? Ive also noticed in Virginia downtown are covered in parking lots while Pennsylvania downtowns still contain most of its density and old architecture. Just curious about laws and policies that help make better downtowns.

[@nairbos]

Interesting choice. Calgary’s downtown is a soulless vacuum

[@Killersanchez256]

@@nairbos Its just what ive seen on google maps. Its just insane Calgary is almost half the population of Denver, but downtowns are comparable. You tell me any metro population of 1.3 million that has a downtown even half of Calgary. Salt Lake City? Oklahoma city? Fresno lmao!

[@Jerdifier]

It’s probably a combination of the oil money creating demand for office space in boom years, the downtown core not getting obliterated by highways and parking lots, and the radial nature of the CTrain centralizing demand in the downtown region. But I do agree with Nairbos’s point that Downtown Calgary is a bit of a dead zone. Besides Eau Claire and the Beltline, of course. You only ever go to downtown proper if you work there, or you’re transferring on the CTrain. There’s basically no nightlife (or human-scale construction at all for that matter), and the area’s relatively hostile to pedestrians outside of Stephen Avenue.

[@DanSolowastaken]

How did you make a whole video about DC height limits without mentioning the can't-be-taller-than-the-Washington-Monument thing? Regardless, that is another great video. Perhaps there is some compromise to be made with the residential/job sprawl problem? TOD needs to have mixed use in mind, and we need to have "Campus" styled mix use so that we can have every neighborhood with the density, green space, and diversity necessary. Targeting renovation a Right-to-City makes good sense when you have TOD as the hub.

[@jamalgibson8139]

I know you guys are big on taller buildings, but I really don't think the issue DC faces is height restrictions. Plenty of European cities have height limits but still manage themselves better than DC does. DC can do better with housing. I think one of the main issues with DC are the roads. They are way too wide and are pretty obviously designed for traffic throughput, but that limits the amount of housing that can be built, even if only slightly. Also, I think DC is too segregated with its land uses. There are lots of different 'districts,' but that ultimately prevents cohesive neighborhoods and good walkability. If you're in the museum district, you have to walk very far to get to a restaurant. There should be more mixed uses inside the different districts, rather than just monument after monument. I know that kind of goes against the ethos of the city, but it would make it more affordable and livable.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

We don't have any particular desire for tall buildings in themselves. It's that they should be allowed if there's demand for them, especially near transit or downtown. If there isn't demand, no problem: low-rise neighbourhoods are great too.

[@jamalgibson8139]

@@OhTheUrbanity No, I totally get the point you're making, I just think that DC has other things they can do that might be easier to ease the housing burden than repealing federal law. I only noted you guys like tall buildings since you're just about the only urbanism channel that advocates for them, and I don't mean that as an insult, lol.

[@seanreidy1420]

Every US city has residential and office/commercial development in their suburbs. This is the norm, not the exception. Claiming that height restrictions is causing this in DC is quite a jump - Prove it with statistics. I believe that DC's current office vacancy is about 20%. If so, it would be false to state that height restrictions are preventing enough office space in the city. Furthermore many of the suburbs where office buildings have congregated are well served by public transit and are very walkable. You chose to discuss Tysons, which is the overwhelming exception. Tyson's is notorious for being car centric. (It should be noted that there is an effort to change this over time.). The answer is not to allow tall buildings in DC. The answer is to provide a metro line that rings the city and connects the outer suburban office nodes. This would provide better transit suburb to suburb as well as from the city. OH! that's right, that would be called the Purple Line.

[@Droidman1231]

I thought I read somewhere that ~30% of office space in DC was vacant so I'm not sure how well this argument holds up. Offices are likely not in DC for other reasons/tranist isn't a huge factor in office location calculus.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

We can get rid of the height limit and see. Maybe there's no demand and nothing gets build - fine. But maybe there is.

[@Mateo_Lamar]

Many offices are empty here. So many jobs went fully remote during covid. A lot of the ones that still have their office only have employees in once or twice a week. Plus a lot of jobs are purposely moving from downtown because of cost, crime, or not needing much space since most people are remote.

[@RJM1693]

When I lived there, I found it was extremely difficult to live without a car, but driving there sucks. The prices near the Metro are outrageous.

[@yukko_parra]

This time I genuinely disagree. Sure it'd be nice to have a denser downtown, but instead DC should invest in a circle line to better connect people around the city. Comparing Sydney and Melbourne, one is a poly-centric city with many major business hubs, and a CBD. Another is a mono-centric city with only the CBD. With Sydney, it can easily facilitate many multidirectional trips and make better use of its infrastructure, as the poly-centric model allows people to "reverse commute". This is not the case with Melbourne; it's either CBD or none, meaning few people have a need to reverse commute and optimise the efficiency of the railway network.

[@Yavin4]

There will be a SF-style tech boom in the DMV once Amazon completes its HQ2 building project. That will probably draw other tech companies into the area as well as boost startups. The area is going to see a massive wave of new people given its decent transit system, good public schools, and comparatively more affordable housing.

[@williammckelvey2677]

It looks like you walked around my old neighborhood: Adams Morgan! I miss DC, but it needs to loosen hight restrictions. If not downtown, at least beyond Columbia Heights and across the Anacostia River.

[@dbclass2969]

The reason DC and the surrounding Suburbs are among the most walkable and transit connected is partially because of the height limit. Instead of having one area full of high density and the rest low density, the entire core is medium density which allows walkable spaces further out than most US metro areas.

[@MrBirdnose]

Lots of capitols are like this. In Olympia, WA, nothing is allowed to be taller than the capitol dome, for aesthetic reasons.

[@DuncanAdkins]

A great counter-example to this is Philadelphia, just up the NEC from DC. Until 1984, there was a gentleman's agreement to prevent the construction of any building taller than City Hall at 548 ft (167 m). One Liberty Place broke this agreement, and now the skyline has grown tremendously, with the Comcast Technology Center anchoring the skyline and being the tallest building in the US, outside of Manhattan & Chicago. There is currently a building boom in the greater Center City area, and it is the area of the region that is growing the most, both in terms of residential construction & in office space. DC could really use a similar breaking of the invisible ceiling!

[@danielkelly2210]

With DC the height rule is no gentlemen's agreement though, but an act of Congress, and it would require a similar act to repeal it.

[@cyclicmusings2661]

I like the height restricted feel of DC but wouldn't mind raising the lowest height limits up to 100ft or so. I'm against skyscrapers in the core of DC though.

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

Locating the airport next to Downtown like in San Diego also induces job sprawl. Though San Diego has very high transit ridership for how weak its downtown is.

[@stevensmith2078]

Please! Paris, Barcelona, London…. Improve US cities like Houston, Dallas, which leave much to be desired beyond the ubiquitous suburbs.

[@JimBrownski]

We don’t need skyscrapers carpetbaggers - that’s what our dense transit oriented suburbs are for! Arlington, Tyson’s and Bethesda/Silver Spring got high rises covered.

[@Averageastriks]

I live in Edmonton Alberta. I live on the NW side and work in the west. To take a bus is four transfers and over two hours each direction, that would be 20 hours per week of travel to and from a job, not a career, a job. I cycle year round instead and it takes on average 35-40 minutes depending on conditions. To drive is 20-25 minutes due to construction and being part of traffic. Better for me and Mother 🌎. 🚲

[@fallenshallrise]

Congratz and all of that but cities should hold a study each year and when cycling is faster than transit for any reasonable trip the CEO should be fired. I'm happy to bike most places but we should all have reasonable options instead of car 20 minutes, ride 40 minutes, bus 2 hours, walk 2 hours.

[@Averageastriks]

@@fallenshallrise agreed. I was just discussing this with a co-worker and your reply. When we were allotted money in the 70's Edmonton tried to avoid causing traffic disruptions and went underground where Calgary kept everything street level and covered five times the distance. Creating huge differences in our transit networks.

[@AnotherDuck]

Judging by comments, the solution isn't to move more jobs downtown and make it denser, but to improve transit to the other areas where jobs cluster. There also seems to be other more significant factors than the height limit for how things develop, especially with how much office space is available downtown as it is. So I'll have to disagree with the video. The so-called price seems absolutely worth it.

[@Screwycummings]

A bigger problem created by DC's height limit is the housing supply limitation. Of course, DC's zoning laws play a role in the relative lack of housing units too. The housing crisis is a much better argument against the height limit than job sprawl.

[@JesusChrist-qs8sx]

Tbh I wouldn't hate DC if the whole city would reach that building height. It'd be the American version of Paris (and add much much needed housing A lot of the issues with it would just be fixed with a better transit system (which, unlike pretty much every other city, DC seems to have at least some plans to fix that)