Capital City Study Tour to Washington D.C., September 14, 2011

Did you know that the Pentagon is not located in Washington D.C. itself, but in Arlington County? Did you know that there is a smartphoneapp for Arlington with which the community is getting more involved in the planning process and did you know that our Professor Heike Mayer likes to go to secret bars? ;-)

Arlington Economic Development

Arlington used to be a dozy bedroom suburb in the 1930’s and is nowadays a flourishing county which is not only home to many departments and agencies of the federal government of the United States but also a multitude of private contractors. One main reason for this successful development is the location of the Pentagon in Arlington and the huge expenditures of the government in the defense industry. Therefore Arlington started to focus its economic development efforts on the federal sector, in particular the defense industry and associated research activities: The Department of Defense, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are all located within Arlington.

This dynamic development is largely supported by the metro line which leads directly to Washington DC. As a consequence, the cityscape of Arlington changed a lot over the past years. It used to be a widespread town marked by low density development and many empty parking lots. Today the development is now focused around the metro stations and the County has successfully created high density mixed used development. Arlington became a very attractive place to live with an interesting and diversified housing market.

Great view of Arlington (Foto: Georg Tobler)

Terry Holzheimer, Director of Arlington Economic Development (AED), emphasized that bringing the government, the industry and the universities together is very important for the local economy. It supports the establishment of private sector spin-offs and knowledge spillovers. Therefore planners and policymakers at Arlington Economic Development have been able to develop “deep relationships” with the three most important actors, federal government, private sector and universities. AED staff organizes business lunches to foster networking between local businesses, or they hold a monthly “café scientifique” to make science more accessible for the public.
An innovative way to get the community more involved in public affairs is the development of a smartphone app, which has information about traffic, but is also interactive in the way that people can tell Arlington County if something is not working properly in their community.

Alexandria Economic Development

Strolling through the historic downtown of Alexandria, we already realized that this city in Northern Virginia must have a different strategy. The city center of Alexandria is landmarked and therefore not many structural changes (high buildings etc.) can be done like in Arlington. The signs on the houses indicate, that many associations and nonprofit organizations are located there. Reasons for this are the much lower land prices and the lower tax compared to Washington D.C.. Alexandria Economic Development encouraged this development by lowering the taxes for associations as the first city in the area. In addition, Alexandria has also become an attractive location for arts and culture with many festivals and events that take place throughout its historic Old Town.

Alexandria`s Old Town (Foto: Heike Mayer)

Supper with Profs from Virginia Tech

After all our meetings during this day in Arlington and Alexandria we enjoyed a drink at the waterfront of Alexandria and later on supper with professors from the Virginia Tech University – the University where Heike worked as a professor before she joined the University of Bern. Of course we shared the latest academic as well as “pub-news”. Of course Heike wanted to show us, how people in Virgina like to party: In one of those secret bars, which don’t even have a sign. There is just a blue light beaming, if it is open ;-)

Great Thai Kitchen at Alexandria`s Port (Foto: Heike Mayer)

Janina Keller

Capital City Study Tour to Washington D.C., September 13, 2011

Washington D.C. is often linked as the political center of the USA and as center for the world politics too. But this is only one aspect of this very dynamic city. During our field trip we had the possibility to learn how the District as a city is developing, what kind of problems the planning and economic development actors have in handling urban development and which instruments they use to solve these problems.

The National Capital Planning Commission and the DC Office of Planning

The governance system in DC is quite different from other cities, because the federal government plays a very important role. First, the federal government has a big impact in the economic development trajectories of the city. Second, there are two planning commissions that ensure the coordination of local and federal interests: The National Capital Planning Commission (responsible to plan the federal buildings and land) and the DC Office of Planning (responsible to plan the city). Federal and local government bodies are working together, but in some cases they don`t have the same goals. For example, a controversial topic is the regulation of the maximum height of all buildings in DC. On one hand the height limitation helps to protect the status of the monuments, but on the other hand it`s can limit the development of the city.

City model (Foto: Janina Keller)

The Reurbanization in DC

DC`s development over the last ten years has been dominated by the reurbanization. This trend is a big opportunity and DC has deliberate strategies to leverage the trend to develop the city in sustainable ways (e.g. denser neighborhoods, transportation linkages, etc.). DC has more jobs than residents, which results in a lot of in-commuters. The city supports urban real-estate development to revitalize neighborhoods into safe places with higher densities, with more retails offerings and with access to high capacity public transportation. This strategy helps to reduce the traffic. The statistics shows that this strategy is working. Only 63% (US average= 95%) of the households in DC have a car.

An old building is being renovated (Foto: Georg Tobler)

But DC has also problems to solve. The dynamic redevelopment displaces the poor community members to other neighborhoods or even to other states nearby. The restriction in height supports the effect of gentrification because of the more horizontal development. DC wants to be a community for everybody and uses therefore some instruments to ameliorate the negative implications of gentrification. If an investor wants to build more than ten houses, he is allowed to use a higher density if he is building ~10% affordable apartments. Another difficult problem in DC remains: Racial and economic segregation and the question how to develop disadvantaged neighborhoods. One current example is the project to relocate the Department of Homeland Securities into Ward 8 and the resulting opportunities for this area. DC aims to create a greater diversity of job opportunities inside the Ward and to connect residents to the opportunities that may arise from the relocation of the Department.

Ben`s Chili Bowl (Foto: Heike Mayer)

Ethiopian Food in the U-Street

In the evening we had the possibility to discuss all the exciting impressions. We visited the new waterfront around the Yards, where we haven`t been allowed to do anything ;) Afterwards we went eating at the very lively U-Street. We decided to try some Ethiopian food and forgo one of DC`s very famous takeaways, Ben`s Chili Bowl.

Park guidelines (Foto: Heike Mayer)

Fabian Bauer