HOUSINGNEWS REPORT
STATE SPOTLIGHT
row houses, and real estate investors see abundant opportunities in which to flip them, said Dias. Demographic Transformation Simultaneously, a demographic transformation is taking place in the District. Washington’s black population is shrinking, while the white population is ballooning. Washington, once 71 percent black in 1970, is only 48 percent black as of July 2015, while the white share has grown from 28 percent in 1970 to 44 percent in July 2015, according to Census Bureau data. Latinos and Asians were 10.6 and 4.2 percent respectively. Also, the region has one of the country’s largest black middle classes and has lower rates of unemployment across all racial categories than is seen nationally. “D.C.’s a young city,” said Dias, who works with her husband, Alex. “Buyers want nightlife and walkability. And the Metro is a must for 90 percent of my clients. But walkability is super important to them.” Population Grows For the first time in nearly 50 years, D.C.’s population began growing again in 2010. At 672,228, D.C.’s population added 70,000 residents between 2010 and 2015, according to Census data. And it added nearly 30,000 new residents between 2000 and 2010. Still, the population is down overall from a peak of 802,000 in 1950.
14th street by the U Street, DC
dining, entertainment and sought-after residential area. The historic U Street Corridor extends from 16th Street NW on the west side to Seventh Street NW on the east and from Florida Avenue NW on the north to S Street NW on the south. The U Street area was once the epicenter of the city’s black community, vibrating with music, culture and entertainment. Hailed as the “Black Broadway” during most of the 20th century, great jazz performers like local-born Edward “Duke” Ellington, Billie Holliday, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald and Shirley Horn performed at local U Street clubs like the Crystal Caverns and at the landmark Lincoln Theater. But after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, much of U Street homes and businesses were burned by rioters. Black middle class and working class families began leaving the city
for the suburbs. Areas in Columbia Heights and on U Street in Northwest D.C., and along H Street, Northeast, were badly damaged and weren’t rebuilt. For decades, the neighborhoods disintegrated into crime, homelessness, drug use and urban blight. Slowly, things started to change a decade ago. A Metro stop (the Green Line) opened in 1991, and artists and professionals started to move in, lured to the area by old fixer-up three-story brick row houses, new townhouses, condos and low home prices. Now, U Street is new and hip again, Dias said. The construction of the Green Line Metro station and the rise of real estate prices brought renewed interest in the U Street area, and new condominiums and townhouses have sprung up, replacing vacant lots and low-slung buildings.
The New U Dias said the U Street Corridor in Northwest Washington has become a
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