Climate change… yikes, right? You’ve probably noticed that it’s been very warm this year. September, in fact, was the most anomalously hot month in recorded history, inspiring one climate scientist to describe the weather as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.” Not a great sign!
Perhaps you’ve been worrying about this state of affairs and wondering what we here in Alexandria can do about it as a community— not just individual lifestyle changes, but collective policy actions that will make a bigger difference. Some of our city’s most tenaciously loud individuals (let’s call them the Integrity Bringer-Backers) have an answer for you. Unfortunately—for them, for the Earth, and for our desire to uphold the standards of intelligent public discourse—their answer is super fucking wrong.
First, let’s get on the same page about terminology. Just about everyone in Alexandria claims to care about the environment, but not everyone is operating under the same functional definition of what constitutes “the environment.” For some of us, it’s the web of complex ecological systems that sustain the health of the planet and every living thing on it. For others, it’s whatever they can see within a 100-yard radius of their house. This myopic view coincidentally benefits their lifestyle preferences and property values. It’s so weird how that happens!
If you’ve been paying attention to the Zoning for Housing pants-wetting rippling out from our city’s rarefied quarters, you may have heard the proposal's biggest haters arguing that we shouldn’t add to Alexandria’s population because that would increase our carbon emissions. Sounds bad, right? But that’s not how [gesturing broadly at the entire celestial body on which we live] any of this works.
Here’s a fun fact about greenhouse gases. The atmosphere doesn’t give one solitary shit which political jurisdiction a carbon dioxide molecule was emitted from. They all get mixed together up there! Our city may be extra (ALXtra?) in many ways, but our climate pollution is not somehow more special or important than that of our neighbors. Much like the truly excessive number of words in this newsletter, it’s the total that counts.
That brings us back to local housing policy (and our point, we promise). People need to live somewhere. If we make it so they can’t do it here, they won’t cease to exist; they’ll move to Prince William County. We’ll have reduced our own carbon emissions, making ourselves look good on paper, but in reality we’ll have done something very counterproductive. According to MWCOG, Alexandria has the lowest per-capita CO2 emissions of any jurisdiction in Northern Virginia. (Suck it, Arlington!) From a climate perspective, it’s better for people to live here than anywhere else in the region.
And why are our per capita emissions so low? Because of… yeah, that's right… wait for it… density motherfuckers!!! Concentrating people, services, and infrastructure in a smaller area reduces the need for people to travel long distances, makes transit more viable and efficient, and lowers energy use from buildings. Not to mention that it helps avoid the need to clear-cut forests to build new subdivisions in the exurbs. That’s why the IPCC has called out increasing urban density and preventing sprawl as one of the single most important things we can do to mitigate climate change.
Yet there was an Agenda Alexandria panel discussion last month discussing the city’s climate policies at which no one even mentioned local land use policy as a solution. (However, they did take five different audience questions about trees. This city is never not on brand.) Meanwhile, this pack of NIMBY doofuses is running around like they’re communing with the (racist) ghost of John Muir and attacking the modest Zoning for Housing proposal on the basis that it would cause environmental harm.
Could increased development within city limits have the possibility of localized environmental impacts? Of course— this is true of basically any activity we undertake, and it’s the reason why we already take proactive steps to minimize those impacts. Is this concern more important than the habitability of the planet? Jesus Christ, no. It is impossible to believe that the folks at the Coalition for a Livable* Alexandria (*offer only valid until 2050 when the sea swallows Old Town) do not understand this existential tension. Their arguments are, in our president’s words, a bunch of malarkey. At a time when shit is getting extremely real weather-wise (and in the face of our governor pulling Virginia out of regional climate partnerships to try to get his New Hampshire poll numbers above zero percent) Alexandria has to step up and wield whatever policy leverage we have given the all-in stakes of our collective future.
Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life
Del Ray Artisans is hosting an exhibit all month on the art of swords and sorcery. The art sounds great, but we’d like to have a word with whoever came up with the idea of teaching children to swordfight.
A reproduction schooner called the Pride of Baltimore II will be visiting Alexandria next week. The Pride of Baltimore I, of course, is a life-size replica of John Waters snorting Old Bay off of a Berger cookie.
This weekend you can tour a full city block excavated by local archaeologists, including the remains of three ships and the foundations of Pioneer Mill and a warehouse. It remains TBD what notable thing George Washington did on this site, but we’re fully confident this will yet prove to be our latest George Washington [Blank]ed Here attraction.
The city announced the list of possible names to replace streets currently tagged with a Confederate moniker. Notably missing from this august roster of local legends: Maryland Cut-Through Driver, Guy Mad About King Street Parking, and most surprisingly, Sean Spicer.
Local Discourse Power Rankings
Zoning (Last week: 2). You can tell it’s finally spooky season around these parts because last week the Coalition for a Livable* Alexandria (*offer not valid for poors or young families) hosted an event for the sole purpose of scaring the shit out of people. They shared slides and graphics that are best read in the voice of Lewis the viral jack-o-lantern, and were pretty much as goofy as him too. They sent shivers down the spines of their audience with tales of a Sierra Club hell-bent on raking in developer profits. They whispered of eldritch horrors like Amazon tech workers slithering into our neighborhoods. And just when we thought it was safe JUMP SCARE— Ballston. So stay safe out there, gentle reader. Samhain draws near and the barrier between the realms of the living and what lies beyond grows thin. What steps across that threshold this year may not be a demon from the pit but something far, far worse instead… a duplex.
You Idiots Are Doing This Road Wrong (Last week: NR). Speaking of things straight out of hell, the state is finally prepared to start work on the series of bridges, ramps, chutes, and ladders that connect Alexandria to Shirlington (which we should really just annex already but that’s a post for another day). Anyone who has ever tried to navigate this interconnection knows that a good start would be to nuke it from orbit and rebuild over the resulting crater. All we want to do is go to Astro Beer Hall! Why do we have to guess which of the approximately 9 ramps will take us there rather than put us on 395 South by mistake! Why are there three red lights in the space of half a block! Get it together, Arlington.
What Would Jesus Do (Last week: NR). City Council announced that it’s repealing Alexandria’s ban on panhandling in order to
comply with a Supreme Court decisionplunge the city into chaos and destroy our quality of life (so, no different from any other Council decision, in other words). This news has brought out the inner sociopath in a surprising number of people. Public commenters have been so goddamn mean about it that Councilmember Gaskins had to use her allotted speaking time at a meeting Tuesday night to beg everyone to stop being such inconsiderate dicks. We’d tell her to save her breath, but we’re busy accusing every person standing near an ATM of doing crime by existing in a place we can see them.
Is Our Children Learning (Last week: 1). ACPS came on as a triple threat this week as they banned weed (ok narcs), revealed no one works there anymore, and topped it all off with a school board member pulling an Irish goodbye while the board was still in session. The general lack of chill on display here leads us to suspect that rethinking that first thing could have a positive effect on that third thing? If you’re pulling a Maureen Dowd and melting into your furniture you’re not leaving meetings in a huff, that’s all we’re saying.
Stream Restoration (Last week: NR). The mayor is taking a bit of heat for remarking that the city has nothing to show for all the money it spent planning the stream bulldozing [clears throat] excuse us, restoration projects that never happened. But was that money really wasted, though? It funded a public debate that provided us with months of entertainment. The hyperbolic yard signs alone had to have been worth at least $1.8 million in comedic value.
Alexandria’s Hottest Club Is… Art on the Avenue
We’re still coming down off the warm high we get each year from the best day in Del Ray (in Alexandria? in all of Virginia?) aka the Saturday of Art on the Avenue. If you’re reading this and you somehow haven’t been, please open your calendar right now, mark the first Saturday in October of 2024, and plan to join 50,000 others in strolling, shopping, chatting, and generally soaking in good vibes up and down Mount Vernon Avenue.
As it promises right there on the label, there is plenty of art at Art on the Avenue. No matter your aesthetic preference, you’re guaranteed to find watercolors (of Alexandria), photography (of Alexandria), hand-drawn maps (of Alexandria), block-print posters (of Alexandria), and of course yarn art. There is also like thirteen different guys selling cutting boards for reasons we don’t fully understand. But the point is there’s a lot of art, much of it local, most of it very cool, and no matter how hard you try your friends will find and buy something amazing that you managed to entirely miss.
But there are two words promised in the title of the festival, and it’s honestly the second one that matters most. It’s the Avenue that makes this event special and unique. The exhilaration of lingering in a space that is often rushed through, of letting kids roam free of the confines of sidewalks and stop signs. The kiosks set up by restaurants and shops along the Ave feel novel and exciting mixed in among the artist booths, stripped of their familiar context. At no other time of the year can you—in the course of one afternoon—run into and chat with every single friend and neighbor and PTA parent and lady from yoga class and guy you see at the grocery store and local politician you can think of. It’s this concentrated feeling of community and togetherness, this mutual deciding to occupy the same place at the same moment in appreciation of things that transcend our everyday routine. This event, more than any other, annually renews our conviction that Alexandria really is a special place— big in all the important ways yet somehow also small, and animated by our shared connections.
The Alexandria Times Quote of the Week
From a letter-writer who moved from Alexandria to Chicago:
“I’m walking distance from groceries, restaurants and the train, all for significantly less than it would have cost to stay home thanks to these abundant and diverse housing options. If Alexandria had been zoned for housing years ago, maybe I could have stayed and gone to Caps games, Sunday dinners with my parents and happy hours at Lost Dog. Instead, I’m half a world away.”
No snark this week - this is a powerful sentiment from a thoughtfully written letter, and it’s worth your time to grab a copy and read it in full.
We Get Letters
Marta S. writes:
Have you all ever compared yourselves to the Newsies? Yes, like early Christian Bale selling papes, forming a union, and standing up against The Man. I get Newsies vibes from ALXtra and would love to know if you're also Arising to Seize the Day against the local establishment papes. (Swapping in "Alexandria" for Santa Fe to localize the ultimate ballad.)
While it’s true that Jesse has frequently referred to himself as a taller, better-looking Christian Bale Batman, it’s the official position of this newsletter that “Santa Fe” from Rent is the only musical theater song about the land of enchantment that we celebrate.
… prairie dogggggs…
One Awesome Thing in ALX
Earlier this week was the annual observance of International Day of the Girl (traditional gift: 83% of whatever you’d give a boy) and the White House marked the occasion by honoring fifteen “Girls Leading Change” including Zahra Rahimi of Alexandria. You can watch video from the event below, and Zahra is featured around the 1:30 mark.
The release from the First Lady’s office notes that Zahra came to Alexandria from Afghanistan when she was 13 and subsequently committed herself to supporting local refugees, particularly in our schools. She’s a student representative to the school board and has championed literacy programs and greater availability of English as a Second Language services. It’s a deserving recognition for a remarkable young woman, and our city should be bursting with pride that we are a place capable of showing her a welcome such that she could turn around and spread that welcome to so many others.
You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.