How D.C. could look if the height restriction changes

What a horrible hit piece by WaPo against the plan to raise the height limit. As if the taller buildings are going to be windowless slab-sided monoliths!<p>Height is beautiful: <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3nsDtd8zatQ/S9382uGLh6I/AAAAAAAAAhs/i2q7WitbpoA/s1600/river.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;1.bp.blogspot.com&#x2F;_3nsDtd8zatQ&#x2F;S9382uGLh6I&#x2F;AAAAAAAAAh...</a><p><a href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v171/lugnuts/Bridges/IMG_5657cs.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;img.photobucket.com&#x2F;albums&#x2F;v171&#x2F;lugnuts&#x2F;Bridges&#x2F;IMG_5...</a><p><a href="http://www.thewrigleybuilding.com/images/about-top.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thewrigleybuilding.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;about-top.jpg</a><p>Also, the growth of D.C. is something I intensely dislike. It reminds me of Trantor in the Foundation series. It&#x27;s all fueled by federal spending. The city has no finance industry, not a lot of technology besides defense contractors, no manufacturing, nothing that would justify the growth other than lots of highly-paid federal workers.<p>I&#x27;m actually a proponent of a robust federal government, but I hate the fact that it&#x27;s concentrated in D.C. I think we need to spend money on say the SEC or the EPA, but we should push the work of these organizations down to local field offices, so the incidental benefits of federal jobs and contracts go back into the communities that pay the taxes to support them. Moreover, local siting makes federal offices much more sensitive to the local culture and concerns.

Limiting housing supply in desirable locations is the new redlining. I understand liking the character of a place, but it seems morally problematic to use the police power to enforce that character at the expense of those who will no longer be able to afford to live there as demand increases while supply doesn&#x27;t. Those same people are often the first to support affordable housing mandates without recoiling at the inefficiencies of the Rube Goldberg machine of policy they&#x27;ve constructed.

I actually really like the height limit in DC aesthetically. After living there and Bethesda for 6 years it&#x27;s strange to think of anything else but the monuments physically dominating everything in sight.

Oh, so construction companies are running out of places in DC? And they need the location right next to the White House?<p>Please.<p>There is space right across Anacostia river in the South East. Metro goes there pretty fast.<p>Build the buildings there, just make sure to hire more police to make it safer for workers.

D.C. would look much more like a real city without the restrictions. This is a good thing!<p>Cities grow! The choice here is between upward and outward. You can keep buildings unnaturally short, which forces the city to spread out, increasing commute times (and a whole lot more). Or you can let things grow, and let the place be more livable for the people that actually live there.

It would make sense to ease restrictions near metro stations first, then later sprinkle restriction lifting throughout other neighborhoods once mass transit and infrastructure gets improved.<p>Key issues to consider: infrastructure (power, water, sewage, gas, internet, transit, roads) traffic impact walkability of neighborhood (are there food options, etc.)<p>I think pushing sprawl outward is the LAST thing DC needs, traffic there is already horrible (not as bad as mexico city or sao paulo, but awful by US standards).

To everyone complaining that companies just want to pack in more lobbyists: There are lots of non-lobbyists in DC, you know? Some of those people include blue collar workers, people on minimum wage, and even nonprofit employees trying to scale back what lobbyists are extracting from us via government. Higher rents (due to less housing) hurt all of those groups. High-paid lobbyists can live in Georgetown regardless. The poor cannot.

I don&#x27;t understand why DC doesn&#x27;t do a Parisian-style La Defense. The central historical DC core can remain at its current height, while skyscrapers and other high rises can be in a designated area.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;La_D%C3%A9fense</a>

I don&#x27;t understand why a city needs to keep &quot;growing&quot; to keep it alive. Keep the height restrictions because it keeps the city beautiful. Why don&#x27;t we develop the parts that are run down before we screw up the view.

I personally am fine with exemptions to the height limit, especially if they can be tied to a meaningful concession from the developer like a <i>significant</i> number of affordable housing units.

Some background from the WaPo: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/24/study-raising-d-c-s-height-limit-would-help-city-not-cause-world-to-end/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;wonkblog&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2013&#x2F;07&#x2F;24&#x2F;s...</a>

Keeping the height restriction in place may be the only practical limit on the size of government.

Great images, though I&#x27;d imagine in real life it would look a bit different from uniform beige boxes.