Another tragic tale of wealthy white liberal NIMBYism
When conflicted advocacy backfires
Jeffrey Denny
My lovely, leafy, historic Palisades community of Washington, DC, just above the Potomac River as it flows to Georgetown, is a classic utopian liberal village in the city.
Palisades was a pre-a/c breezy summer escape from the literal DC swamp. You can still see the grassy strip where the trolley ran up from the Georgetown waterfront to the Glen Echo amusement park, which became a civil rights landmark (see “Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round”).
Today, Palisades has everything (cue SNL’s Stefan): high walkability scores, deep woods with hiking trails, many churches, and a community center in an old church hosting clogging dance nights, ’70s tribute bands, and events like “Singing for Good: Songs of Peace & Protest” that draw aging Boomers.
Palisades also offers a humble post office, a library, a weekend farmer’s market, a CVS in a 1930s theater, numerous banks, exclusive private schools, protected bike lanes that Cervelo cyclists disdain, and a smattering of costly but beloved restaurants.
And just like in 1950s America, Palisades shuts down its main thoroughfare, MacArthur Boulevard (yes, named after that MacArthur), for an annual July 4th parade.
“The Palisades has a small-town feel that’s unusual for a neighborhood only 10 minutes from downtown Washington,” The Washington Post extolled. Canadian founders in 1890 modeled Palisades after communities arising along New York’s Hudson River.
Need I mention that Palisades is nearly 80% white in this Black city? Or that the median home price is $1.2 million with many over $5 million, the median household income nears $200,000 with countless millionaires, and virtually everyone has a college degree, often post-grad?
It also skews older, since most young people can’t afford to buy or rent here. And yes, Palisades votes nearly 100% Democratic.
All told, Palisades demonstrates how educated, elite Democrats screw themselves with their enlightened intentions — and lost America to Trump.
This story is about an old, cherished Safeway grocery store that the food retailer, founded in 1915, opened on MacArthur Boulevard in 1942, a first in DC. It’s unclear whether General MacArthur himself visited to pick up chicken for his wife to fry, his favorite meal.
But Palisades residents were just as ornery as MacArthur when Safeway filed to rebuild the store property into a modest mixed-use retail-residential development with apartments above and shops alongside.
Surely to make a buck, but Safeway was addressing the city’s crying shortage of housing that was inflating housing costs. The mayor, a pragmatic, no-nonsense Black woman, challenged developers to build more housing in wealthy, white communities for teachers, police, firefighters, and poor wage workers we depend on to tend our homes, landscapes, and public works.
Nevertheless, the Palisades community rose in righteous fury against the Safeway development.
While caring deeply about the underhoused, they thundered the usual liberal NIMBY talking points. They claimed it was a sop to greedy capitalist developers, ignoring that capitalism made them rich enough to live in Palisades. They claimed it would destroy the character of the community, not hearing — despite their liberal educations — how they’re spewing white segregationist redlining claims that have kept white DC communities white to this day.
The Safeway project would also bring — gasp! — 100 condominiums in a five-story building. They won’t be affordable. Tall buildings use more energy and reflect heat, threatening the climate and children who will inherit a roasting planet. Kids would also be harmed by more reckless, exhaust-spewing traffic and crowded schools. The new homes and families would overwhelm public works and raise taxes. Yard signs say “All Are Welcome Here,” but of course, more aren’t.
In the end, the Palisades NIMBYs won.
Democrats love the political process, and retired folks have time and stirring memories of the ’60s power-to-the-people protest days. They pulled every procedural lever until Safeway gave up.
The victory was Pyrrhic. Safeway sold the property to a developer who built a massive luxury senior living facility with 137 residences. With no grocery store. It’s housing all right, and seniors in the community need it, but studio units start at $8,000 per month, hardly affordable.
Now the NIMBYs are complaining that Palisades is a “food desert,” like in poor black neighborhoods miles (and worlds) away. They pressured a local restaurateur to install a grocery store if it wants to redevelop its property with housing. The restaurant couldn’t find a grocer. It’s common in the community to try to micromanage retail commerce without putting any money on the table.
I asked a guy at the wine store next door to the luxury senior housing complex why the community killed Safeway. “They fight against everything,” he said.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
