Elise Richer, Urban Institute

Elise Richer plays center halfback for the Flanders Football Club and does social policy research for the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.

The neighborhood of Columbia Heights starts about eight blocks east from my building, but it might as well be eight miles east for all the interaction I have with it. For most residents of Adams Morgan and Mount Pleasant -- the gentrified and gentrifying areas which border Columbia Heights -- the hard-up neighborhood is strictly drive-through only, on the way to the newly funky U-Street corridor, or to the Maryland suburbs and the Beltway. There is not enough business in the area to draw outsiders to Columbia Heights for work or shopping, and the streets house few, if any, famous landmarks mentioned in guidebooks. The neighborhood's old theatre has been vacant and boarded-up for decades, and a reputation for crime lingers and keeps visitors away.

This all may be changing, however, and since part of my job these days is providing some technical assistance to a Community Development Corportation in the area, I have become acutely aware of some of the tensions surrounding neighborhood change. A few months ago, we held some focus groups to get initial impressions of the greatest barriers residents perceive to achieving economic success. One of the first that emerged was gentrification and the rising cost of housing. Columbia Heights is a long way from gentrification at this point, at least from an oblivious outsider's point of view. Commercial activity there is far behind the residents' demand, as even a supermarket is missing; housing stock ranges widely, with lovingly preserved homes sitting next to those abandoned and boarded-up; recreational opportunities are limited (Rock Creek Park, the defining recreational spot for Northwest D.C. residents, is practically on the moon from this perspective); drugs and prostitution, while far less than they were five years ago, remain distinct problems. Nevertheless, a new Metro stop is going into the neighborhood this fall, and housing demand and prices will increase. During one focus group, a community activist pointed out that Columbia Heights is in danger of becoming the next Adams Morgan, where single white people who work downtown and pay princely sums of money for rent are replacing the working families. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

Last night, the Urban Institute hosted an unlikely group of guests: 10 high school students from Bell High School, located in Columbia Heights. We contacted the kids because of their work with the Youth Action Research Group in their school. Last year, they had done a poignant and interesting (if somewhat haphazard) survey and report on conditions in their neighborhood. My colleague Mark and I are now arranging to have the kids help us on another resident survey, which we are conducting as part of our work in the area. The arrangement will be one of mutual benefit, we hope, as we gain information otherwise unattainable about the neighborhood, and they receive training and writing experience (and a small payment).

The kids were quiet during the first part of the training. I wonder exactly how boring and irrelevant this seems to them, after a long day at school filled with the countless activities and crises which make up an adolescent's routine. Bell is a school hardly noted for its academic successes; I imagine these youth struggling to become as educated as they are. The two boys are tall and lanky, and if anything are even quieter than the girls, who are more self-possessed. When the kids do talk, they surprise me by being deeply engaged with the material. Their questions are perceptive, and their expressions tend to be serious. The one comedienne of the crowd is a senior who is too quick for her own good. As the students turn to page one of the survey we are reviewing, she points out a spelling error on the survey's last page.

The students represent a range of different backgrounds, as their neighborhood and high school do. Their bilingual abilities are such a boon to our project that I am positively astonished at our good luck. Their seriousness and interest in their neighborhood are both inspiring and moving. Like all teenagers, they probably do not quite realize their value and potential; I hope that our work with them will emphasize both. They will need a profound belief in their own abilities to overcome the persistent barriers this city has thrown in their way.

The views expressed here aren't necessarily those of the Urban Institute.