While reading Sarah Larimer’s TBD article on Mayor Fenty’s likely career trajectory after D.C. Democrats effectively boot him from office tomorrow, my jaw dropped at the following passage:
What about Howard’s Department of Political Science? Would it consider taking on the mayor as a lecturer? Department chairman Daryl Harris said he hadn’t given the idea much thought, but it wouldn’t go over well with some students and members of the faculty. Harris said many on campus disagree with Fenty’s policy decisions — his moves to reform education, failure to stop the spread of gentrification, and the commonly reported feeling that Fenty stopped connecting with his community. [Emphasis added.]
“I could see some of my other colleagues in the same field that I work in being quite critical and wondering have I lost my mind,” he said.
I can imagine a few strategies that might stop the spread of gentrification, like creating a large “law-free zone” in the heart of the District in which criminals would be allowed to assault people with impunity or engineering an economic collapse that would impoverish the kind of adventurous college-educated dual-earner households that have a taste for walkable urbanism and short commutes. Or, in a related vein, we could radically shrink the federal government, thus encouraging the “de-gentrification” of various D.C. neighborhoods. This last approach might unite conservatives and at least some D.C. progressives.
Tim Carney had an astute take on Mayor Fenty’s strengths and limitations in the Washington Examiner, and how the race between Fenty and D.C. City Council Chairman Vincent Gray reflects on a broader split within the District’s Democratic party. I recommend it. My admiration for Fenty stems almost entirely from his decision to appoint Michelle Rhee to high office. Depressingly, I imagine that her days as Schools Chancellor are numbered.