Article: D.C., Long 'Chocolate City,' Becoming More Vanilla
As someone with lifelong ties to this area, the growing trend of “gentrification” in this area is both exciting and concerning. It’s exciting to see new businesses like restaurants and stores open up and to see DC and many of its surrounding suburbs become fun and interesting destinations. It’s awesome to see so many different types of people choose DC to be their new home.
At the same time, it’s concerning to see that so many people are being “priced out” of their own homes, with rising property values and therefore higher taxes. Plus, things in the area are becoming so expensive; even staying in a cheap motel on the outskirts of Silver Spring is about $100 a night.
It seems like a lot of the “less wealthy” folks that lived in DC and some of the surburban towns like Silver Sping, only to have their neighborhoods transformed into pricey condos, have moved to either other suburban towns in PG and Howard Counties, or even farther south or perhaps up to Baltimore.
To go further with my dismay at some of the development, everything seems to be made up of cookie cutter designs and there’s no thought or concern about what the community once was and who lived there. You mainly see a lot of chains and boutiques…sigh. It makes one wonder if gentrification is always the way to go, and who wins and loses when it happens.
