Newsroom

Apr 11, 2011

In case you haven’t had the privilege to read The Yardstick everyday we’ve put together some of our favorite/most-read entries from the past few weeks. Enjoy:

Apr 7, 2011

It seems like this topic used to get less frequent play but the merits and drawbacks of building height limits specifically in D.C. are being discussed yet again. Ryan Avent sparked the discussion yesterday with a proposal for allowing taller buildings in specific districts in exchange for developers/owners paying a one-time fee-per-floor to the city.

Apr 6, 2011

Yesterday we commented on the positive impact that the CenterCityDC development could have by bringing jobs housing and more vibrancy to one of the region’s core centers. In all fairness that redevelopment project is an easy one to endorse. The area has been vastly underutilized (a parking lot) for years so almost any development would be better than its current form. However realizing the site’s key location as a linking between the western and eastern ends of the city’s downtown district

Apr 5, 2011

As you’ve probably heard construction on CenterCityDC recently broke ground – fifteen years after its inception – and leaders in the District are talking very bullish on the 10-acre redevelopment project. They have good reason to be optimistic about what CenterCityDC – the largest downtown development project currently underway in the U.S. – can do for the city and the region. In addition to the thousands of jobs it will generate (during construction and afterwards in the 700000 square fe

Apr 4, 2011

The topic of the most recent National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) Speaker Series event was Regional Innovation Clusters or RICs.

Apr 1, 2011

In 2025 nine of the ten cities with the fastest economic growth rates will be in China. That’s according to a new McKinsey Institute report on how the world’s major cities will change between now and 2025 .

Mar 30, 2011

Metro Washington is very wealthy when compared to the rest of the country; however within the region there are pockets of inequality on a number of factors ranging from income to education to health. According to a new study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation metro Washington has some of the healthiest jurisdictions in the country alongside some lagging far behind.

Mar 29, 2011

Thinking long-term is something we’ve focused on a lot here at The Morning Measure (post on topics like renewable energy spending/budget decisions high-speed rail and climate change are just a few examples). This focus is only natural – Region Forward is the outcome of Greater Washington 2050 a coalition of civic political and business leaders who got together to create shared goals and targets to improve the long-term future of the metro DC area. However thinking long-term is also not something that is traditionally intuitive to business and political cycles both of which largely operate on the principle of maximizing immediate returns.

Mar 28, 2011

As Census 2010 data is incrementally released and incrementally analyzed demography has been getting more than its usual share of attention over the past few months. Many of the trends that the data are highlighting are not surprising however in metro Washington or around the nation. The increasing concentration of America’s population and economic strength in its metro areas the spread of racial diversity from central cities to the suburbs and the growth of racial minorities overall ar

Mar 25, 2011

Three years ago British Columbia Canada’s westernmost province passed a tax on carbon which costs approximately $21 per ton of carbon dioxide-equivalent (equaling less than 20 cents per gallon of gas). The main goal of the tax was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a secondary goal was to raise revenues.