Along with my articles on the history of the DC region and of its public transit, its demographics, its libraries, and improving its public transportation, I have written a few other articles on local geography that do not fit neatly into these categories. These include a September 2020 Greater Greater Washington article on “Why DC and Baltimore are different colors from space” and a February 2021 article, “A look at the region’s intersections“, presenting a map based on some data from my Master’s project, which I was in the process of writing up at the time.
In addition, in November 2017, I wrote a Greater Greater Washington article arguing for the use of population-weighted density rather overall population density to measure the region’s population density: “The way we calculate population density is wrong. Here’s what we should do instead.” Then, in February 2020, I wrote a D.C. Policy Center article, “Where the Washington region achieves walkable density” (cross-posted on Greater Greater Washington), applying my “percent ideal walkshed” technique to density in the DC region.
Place Names in the DC Region
Place names in the DC region are a particularly fraught topic because an unusually large fraction of the region’s suburbs consist of unincorporated areas. In response, I have written a series of articles for Greater Greater Washington, arguing that people ought to use Census-designated place names to refer to unincorporated places in the DC suburbs instead of ZIP code place names, which often cover large areas and have little connection to the names of the municipalities that do exist.
- “Where you live is obviously important. But around here, it’s not that easy to define.” (June 2017)
- “Many people use ZIP codes to determine place names. Here’s why that doesn’t work well.” (February 2018)
- “A first look at our region’s new Census-Designated Places” (January 2021)
Difficulty in identifying clear names for regions of Prince George’s County led to a pair of May 2018 Greater Greater Washington articles in which I asked readers to assign place names to the county’s seven official planning regions:
- “What do you call different regions of Prince George’s County? Even for locals, it’s complicated.“
- “We asked, you answered: here are our readers’ names for regions of Prince George’s County“
Perhaps unsurprisingly, while there was clear agreement on the names of several of them, others received a wide variety of suggested names. I was particularly disappointed that there was no consensus on what to call planning region 2, where I grew up and currently live.