Planning Washington:
Capital and Community
The National Capital Planning Commission’s First 100 Years
Washington, DC is an extraordinary city. The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) has helped make it so.

NCPC has served as the federal government’s planning agency for 100 years. It was also the city’s local planning agency until 1974. The agency has aspired to preserve and enhance the design of our nation’s capital to reflect democratic ideals of openness and participation while also meeting the needs of people who live, work, and visit here.

Through a range of events and resources, NCPC’s 2024 Centennial presents an opportunity to celebrate the history of planning in Washington and the region, acknowledge unfairness in past planning practices, and consider lessons learned for planning the capital’s future.

About NCPC
“Washington is not just another city. It is a symbol to the whole free world. Our problem is to permit the necessary development, but to keep the character of our city and the surrounding area.”
– Elizabeth "Libby" Rowe, NCPC Chair, 1961-1968
NCPC Milestones
  1. 1924
  2. 1926
  3. 1952
  4. 1973
  5. 2024

  1. 1924

    Congress establishes the National Capital Park Commission to acquire land for public parks, parkways, and playgrounds in Washington and jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia.

  2. 1926

    Congress grants the agency, renamed the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, broad planning authority for highways, housing, parks, sewers, subdivisions, and more for both the federal government and local residents.

  3. 1952

    Congress renames the agency to the current National Capital Planning Commission. It formalizes NCPC as Washington’s central planning agency, with planning responsibilities for the federal and local city.

  4. 1973

    The District of Columbia Home Rule Act hands local planning to an elected mayor. NCPC continues to this day to plan and review proposals for developing federal properties in Washington and the region, and certain District properties.

  5. 2024

    NCPC celebrates its Centennial and looks toward another century of planning for the National Capital Region.

  6. 2025+

    NCPC will continue to serve as the federal government's planning agency, protecting the historic nature of the city while advancing plans and policies that will have a positive impact of the National Capital Region.

About the Exhibit
Planning Washington: Capital and Community explores how federal planning and its consequences have shaped today’s National Capital Region.

NCPC created this exhibit with technical support from Prologue DC. This digital exhibit is a companion to a physical exhibit on display at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library from June 6 – September 1, 2024, as well as other DC Public Libraries and regional locations throughout 2024. NCPC extends its appreciation to the DC Public Library for its generous assistance and support and thanks the advisors who contributed their expertise.
Washington Began
with a plan
Garnet W. Jex, The Planning of Washington, 1791, 1931, oil on canvas  P.31.1. Luther W. Brady Art Gallery/Collection of GWU
The painting depicts President George Washington on a hill in current day Foggy Bottom. He is joined by William Thornton, the original architect of the Capitol; Pierre Charles L'Enfant, holding his plan for the city; Andrew Ellicott with his surveying tools; and Benjamin Banneker, recording Ellicott's survey.

Introduction
Washington has been a planned city from the start, with longstanding visionary plans and concepts shaping the city’s design well before the establishment of NCPC.

Planning History

  • Pre-1600s

    Before There Was a City

    Long before it becomes Washington, DC, this land is home to Indigenous people known as Nacotchtank or Anacostans. They hunt, fish, quarry stone, and trade at the confluence of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers for thousands of years. ​In the 1600s, European settlers take their land for farming and bring diseases that kill them. Indigenous people from different nations remain in the region today.

    This 1890 map shows the sites of Indigenous villages in and around Washington, based on the existence of stone tools found by S.V. Proudfit of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Proudfit donated the quartz, quartzite, and argillite artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution.

  • 1790-1792

    The L’Enfant and Ellicott Plans

    President George Washington chooses the land for the nation’s capital in 1790. His wartime assistant, engineer Pierre L’Enfant, draws up a plan for the new city of Washington. L’Enfant’s visionary design, which includes many parks, places key civic buildings on higher ground, connects them with grand avenues, and creates long, sweeping views. L’Enfant designs the city to represent the young country’s democratic ideals. For example, he uses Pennsylvania Avenue to link the White House and the U.S. Capitol, two of the three branches of government.

    Andrew Ellicott’s 1792 rendering of L’Enfant’s plan for the city.

    Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught Black mathematician and astronomer who was born free, worked with chief surveyor Andrew Ellicott to lay out the 100-mile-square site for the District of Columbia.

    • “Washington was created for a definite purpose and has been developed according to a definite plan. Therein lies its unique distinction among American cities, and among all existing capitals in the western world.”
    – Washington: City and ​Capital (1937)
  • 1901-1902

    The McMillan Commission Plan

    As the city grows through the 1800s, development veers from L’Enfant’s plan. The 1901 Senate establishes a commission, led by Senator James McMillan, to restore and give new meaning to L’Enfant’s vision of a beautiful and inspiring capital. The National Mall’s open greenway, the city’s public park and open space system, and the grand neo-classical buildings that characterize Washington’s federal core would result from the McMillan Plan.



    At the turn of the 20th century, the National Mall looks very different from today. Stands of trees and winding paths are in the foreground, while a train station and tracks are located closer to the U.S. Capitol.

    Inspired by the “City Beautiful” movement, the 1902 McMillan Commission Plan establishes a blueprint for what we now know as the National Mall and monumental core.

  • 1910

    The Height of Buildings Act

    The 1910 federal Height of Buildings Act limits building heights across the city. Over time, this restriction shapes development and results in Washington’s distinctive, low skyline.

    The 1894 construction of the Cairo luxury apartment building prompts concerns about design and fire safety, leading to the Height of Buildings Act.


    Heights & Views

    Unlike cities where skyscrapers define the skyline, civic buildings and features such as the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument are most prominent in Washington.

  • 1924

    A New Commission is Born

    Congress establishes NCPC in 1924 to guide the city’s orderly growth while advancing the L'Enfant and McMillan Plans for a beautiful capital. 

    Rowhouses fill Northwest Washington’s Petworth neighborhood in the 1920s as the city expands beyond downtown.

Greening
the city
Library of Congress
At more than 1,700 acres, Rock Creek Park is Washington’s largest, with about two million visitors each year.

Introduction
Today, Washington has more green space per capita than any other U.S. city of its size, including large natural areas, parkland along stream valleys, and open space around federal buildings. These parks and public spaces provide the setting for the capital and are used for local recreation and national events.

After World War I, civic groups worried that development was filling open land, ruining forests, and harming water quality. NCPC was established in 1924 to plan parks, protect natural resources, and fulfill the ambitious McMillan Plan. Under the 1930 Capper-Cramton Act, the agency bought land to extend Anacostia and Rock Creek Parks and for parkways along the Potomac River in Virginia and Maryland.

Capper-Cramton Act Parks and Open Space
“Rock Creek Park was our playground.”
– Phylicia Fauntleroy Bowman, who grew up in Petworth in the 1950s.
The End of Reno City
NCPC began to acquire the ring of 68 former Civil War defenses to create a system of connected parks along the city’s ridgeline. The acquisition of land for parks, especially around these former forts, displaced some Black and racially mixed communities, including Reno City in a growing Whites-only neighborhood in Upper Northwest. The Scott family, who first moved to Reno City in 1898, lost three houses on Chesapeake Street for the creation of Fort Reno Park, despite fighting to save them.

More About Reno City
Washington as a
company town
National Archives
Construction of the Federal Triangle in downtown Washington in the 1930’s.

Introduction
The federal government is the city’s largest employer and drives its ​​​​economy. ​​​​​​Hundreds of thousands of civil servants conduct the nation’s business from offices throughout the region. The monumental buildings signal our country’s strength and form the core of Washington’s downtown. NCPC has guided federal development and helped reinforce Washington’s symbolic role as the nation’s capital.
Federal Buildings and Campuses in the 20th Century
Dozens of federal buildings were built in Washington’s monumental core and metropolitan area in the 20th century. The Great Depression and World War II spurred development as agencies were established to address new challenges. In the 1950s and 1960s, modern government offices were built around downtown while new federal campuses were established throughout the region. Spurred by the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, the National Mall and surrounding areas saw further improvements and new museums.
“Each weekday morning, 30,000 workers leave their homes, converge on this area, and disappear into the monumental buildings.”
– Washington: City and Capital (1937)
Displacement
Library of Congress

In the 1930s, the Federal Triangle displaces working-class neighborhoods, including Washington’s first Chinatown. This is a view of an industrial section of the old neighborhood.

Library of Congress

In the early 1940s, Pentagon construction destroys a historic Black community known as Queen City (or East Arlington), seen above, whose residents are given only weeks to vacate their homes.

Federal Workers
National Archives

In 1933, many federal employees park in this Federal Triangle lot, now filled by the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

Library of Congress

Federal Bureau of Investigation clerks at work in the Justice Department building in 1956.

Comprehensive Plans
shape the future
NCPC
This map from the 1950 comprehensive plan shows the proposed system of three concentric highways and the spoked network of arterials extending to new suburban government centers.

Introduction
Planners have several tools to shape a city. A comprehensive plan is one of the most important. It sets forth an aspirational vision for a city’s future. Planners build this vision with policies for land use, employment, housing, transportation, parks, and almost every other component of urban life.

With the 1945 District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, Congress directed NCPC to write Washington’s first “comp plan.” The agency hired St. Louis-based Harland Bartholomew for the job. In the 1920s, Bartholomew had created Washington’s first zoning map and a transportation plan that proposed widening and adding roads throughout the city. He also helped plan the nation’s Interstate Highway System.

As many White Washingtonians departed the city for federally subsidized suburbs, NCPC’s 1950 comprehensive plan recommended building highways through and beyond the city. The plan anticipated the continued movement of residents and federal government offices out of Washington, but did not foresee the larger economic impact of “White flight.” Sparked by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Washington’s April 1968 civil unrest was, in part, a response to urban disinvestment.

The big ideas in early comprehensive plans shaped the region’s growth while also creating long-lasting inequitable outcomes that today’s planners must address.
Harland Bartholomew
Reproduced with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post Professional planning pioneer Harland Bartholomew (1889–1989) oversaw the completion of comprehensive plans for nearly 570 American cities. He chaired NCPC from 1953 until 1960. Bartholomew was an early proponent of highway construction and “slum clearance” as tools for urban revitalization. During the Great Migration, millions of Black southerners moved to urban centers across the United States. Here, he is seen testifying before Congress in 1955.
NCPC Bartholomew’s city and highway plans contributed to racial segregation and the frequent displacement of Black communities. A map in NCPC’s 1950 comprehensive plan, produced by Bartholomew’s firm, seen here, designated as “problem areas” many neighborhoods close to downtown as well as Georgetown, Barry Farm, Marshall Heights, and Deanwood.
Zoning Shapes Development
Courtesy DC Public Library, The People’s Archive
Zoning codes stipulate how each section of a city may be used and what types of housing are allowable. Washington’s 1936 zoning map, seen here, reserves almost all of the area west of Rock Creek Park for single-family detached houses, designating other areas for more affordable housing types such as rowhouses and apartments. Zoning has contributed to Washington’s racial and economic segregation.

Mapping Segregation DC
Wedges and Corridors
NCPC
Visit Montgomery

Transportation drives development patterns. Later NCPC plans adapted this concept, locating intensive development along highway “corridors” while preserving open space and encouraging less dense development in the “wedges” in between, as seen in this 1961 map. This idea is most fully realized in Montgomery County, Maryland. Other parts of the region have grown in more sprawling patterns.

The Urban Renewal
experiment
Library of Congress
The U.S. Capitol looms over Southwest Washington in this 1937 photo.

Introduction
For years, ​​​​reformers had called for eradicating substandard housing, pointing to its shameful existence in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.

With the 1945 District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, Congress charged NCPC with devising proposals for rebuilding large swaths of the city. The new Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) would oversee the work, which was referred to as “urban renewal.” Congressional advocates of urban renewal were eager to test the idea far from their own constituents.

Five years later, NCPC’s first comprehensive plan for Washington advanced Southwest as a pilot urban renewal project. Once realized, urban renewal in Southwest created a wholly new neighborhood as it simultaneously displaced thousands of people.
Development and Displacement in Southwest
Southwest was one of the nation’s earliest and most complete urban renewal projects.

Until the 1950s, Southwest was home to poor and working-class, mostly Black families. NCPC planners debated whether to rehabilitate some of the old buildings or tear everything down and build anew. The Washington Post and other White business leaders pushed for the latter. In a 1954 case based on urban renewal in Southwest, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled as constitutional the government’s taking of people’s property, whether blighted or not, to be privately redeveloped for urban renewal.

In the end, most of the neighborhood was razed, and about 13,500 people and 1,500 businesses were displaced.
“If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the Nation’s Capital should be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.”
– Justice William O. Douglas, in Berman v. Parker, 1954
Housing filled one half of the redeveloped Southwest, and the new Southwest Federal Center was located on the other half. Federal and local leaders applauded the renewal of Southwest for its cutting-edge modern architecture and for attracting middle-class residents.

Almost none of the people who had lost their homes could afford the new housing in their old neighborhood.

A Different Approach in Shaw
Faced with an outraged public, NCPC and RLA began working with affected residents as other renewal projects moved forward. In the Shaw neighborhood, ​Reverend Walter Fauntroy insisted on what he called “renewal with people, by the people, and for the people.” ​NCPC worked closely with  ​Fauntroy’s Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO) to engage area residents in planning and construction, and to ensure they could remain in the neighborhood post-redevelopment.

In 1969, Rev. Walter Fauntroy, at right, confers with architect Herbert McDonald and young Cedric Carter on plans for a block destroyed during the previous year’s civil unrest that would ultimately become the site of the Lincoln-Westmoreland Apartments. (Reproduced with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post)

This 1969 MICCO publication celebrates redevelopment work in Shaw. (All Souls Unitarian Archives)

Prior to serving as an NCPC Commissioner and the agency’s Executive Director, Reginald Griffith worked for MICCO. Check out his Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate thesis exploring MICCO’s work with the community.

Other Communities

Designated Areas

This 1960 map shows areas designated by NCPC for urban renewal. In response to public concern, proposals for some areas were not advanced; however, other areas slated for urban renewal would be redeveloped.


Adams Morgan

In the early 1960s, Adams Morgan residents worked with NCPC and others to look at less disruptive urban renewal approaches. Unable to find an option without major displacement of homes and businesses, including those in this 1977 photo of 18th Street, NW, NCPC dropped its renewal plans.


Sursum Corda

A view of backyards in the new Sursum Corda housing complex in 1969. Sursum Corda replaced old rowhouses in the Northwest One urban renewal area, near First and L Streets, NW.


More about Urban Renewal Plans
New Highways
connect and divide
Reproduced with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post
Maryland Governor J. Millard Tawes (center) cuts the ribbon on the Capital Beltway in August 1964.
Introduction
In many ways, today’s Washington is remarkably consistent with the city designed more than 200 years ago by L’Enfant. While much of the city is walkable and easy to navigate, it is also part of a metropolitan area both connected and divided by interstate highways.

By the 1950s, the automobile had radically reshaped American cities, fostering expansion far beyond traditional downtowns. In 1959, NCPC and the National Capital Regional Planning Council prepared a regional transportation plan that recommended more than 300 miles of new roads. 

The Inner Loop
Construction of the Capital Beltway and sections of the Inner Loop in Washington proceeded, starting with the Southwest Freeway, the Whitehurst Freeway, and portions of the “Center Leg.” Drawings prepared for NCPC in 1955 (the map below) show the proposed phasing for construction of the “Inner Loop” about a mile out from the White House. The pink solid lines show constructed sections; broken lines were not.
Courtesy DC Public Library, The People’s Archive
Protest and Change
Angered by the destruction of neighborhoods, a coalition of civil rights leaders and others united in the 1960s to oppose further highway construction. They successfully halted highways through downtown and neighborhoods including majority-Black U Street, Brookland, and Takoma, and the Three Sisters Bridge over the Potomac River. Their action saved homes and businesses and kept thousands of people in their communities.

“Gen Duke is stooge for the Highway Lobby … but citizens go for Mrs. Rowe!” Freeway opponents picket an NCPC meeting in 1966. Their signs refer to NCPC Chair Libby Rowe, DC Engineer Commissioner Charles Duke, and the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson.

Civil rights leaders and neighborhood activists formed the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis (ECTC) in the 1960s to oppose further highway construction. Pictured is an ECTC protest sign from 1965.

Residents of neighborhoods in the path of the proposed North Central Freeway, including Brookland and Takoma Park, picket outside the Commerce Department during a highway hearing in 1965.

In 1971, anti-freeway activists celebrate a setback for the proposed Three Sisters Bridge over the Potomac River, to have been built up-river from Key Bridge as part of the Inner Loop project.

Metro Moves
people
WMATA
Rhode Island Avenue Metro station opening day in March 1976.

Introduction
Today’s National Capital Region boasts a premiere mass transit system. Six Metrorail lines and hundreds of bus routes connect downtown to neighborhoods across the city and to the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Metro is one of the best designed and busiest public transportation networks in the United States.
The Metro System is Born
NCPC recommended only a modest rapid rail system for the Washington area in 1959. But, as public demand grew for using highway funds to finance a subway system instead, the agency withheld support for the freeway plan throughout the 1960s. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority was created in 1967, and Metrorail construction began two years later. However, a Kentucky Congressman, who chaired the subcommittee controlling Washington’s budget, blocked appropriations for Metrorail for years. Congress eventually released funding formerly reserved for building freeways.

In March 1976, the first Red Line segment opened between Farragut North and Rhode Island Avenue. Early Metrorail planning sought to connect regional federal campuses and transport suburban federal workers to their offices. Today, Metro connects communities, spurs sustainable development, and continues to move people from place to place.
Elizabeth “Libby” Rowe
Reproduced with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post

Libby Rowe (1912-1991), appointed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy as NCPC’s first female commissioner, quickly rose to chair, serving until 1968. The native Washingtonian opposed further highway construction and urban renewal and championed a regional Metro system and historic preservation. She called the subway system “the salvation of the center of the city.” Here, Rowe is pictured in 1961 after she is sworn in as commissioner.

A Cultural Center
for the nation
Courtesy of U.S. Commission of Fine Arts
This 1970 image shows the area’s transformation from rowhouse, commercial, and industrial uses to what we know today: the Kennedy Center (opened 1971), the Watergate complex (opened 1966-1971), and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and connected freeway infrastructure, intended as part of the Inner Loop (opened 1964-1965).

Introduction
After World War II, the idea of a national cultural center in the capital that would be an important symbol of our country’s emergence on the world stage grew popular.
Choosing a Site
President Eisenhower (right) meets with Chair Agnes E. Meyer and District of Columbia Auditorium Commission members in 1957 following release of its report.
At the time, the city had limited performing arts venues, so Congress established the District of Columbia Auditorium Commission to recommend locations for a new center. It proposed sites in Foggy Bottom, Southwest, and elsewhere.

With freeway construction and urban renewal already underway in Southwest, planners considered the Foggy Bottom area more feasible. Federal ownership of much of the site, and its riverfront location, were additional selling points. NCPC acquired additional land and provided expert advice during the lengthy site selection and design process. Even as the project moved forward, there was criticism of the freeway “spaghetti” that separated the new center from the National Mall and adjoining neighborhoods.

Multiple administrations supported the National Cultural Center, starting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Congress, with strong support from President Lyndon B. Johnson, decided to designate the center as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy shortly after his 1963 assassination.
Courtesy of the Kennedy Center Archives
The District of Columbia Auditorium Commission’s 1957 report proposed possible locations (outlined in green) for what is now the Kennedy Center. The debate continued for years, with other locations proposed, including the site of today’s National Air and Space Museum.

“…the life of the arts, far from being...a distraction in the life of a nation, is very close to the center of a nation’s purpose...”
– President John F. Kennedy, LOOK Magazine, 1962
Courtesy of the Heurich House Museum
NCPC
The area selected for the center housed a mix of uses, including the Heurich Brewery, pictured to the left. As shown on this “boomerang” drawing, much of the proposed site was already publicly owned (shaded area); NCPC later acquired additional land. As the scheme for the center evolved, it influenced the alignment and design of the freeway infrastructure and parkway.
Courtesy of the Kennedy Center Archives
Early Concept for the Kennedy Center
Like other mid-century federal architecture in Washington, the Kennedy Center’s design was intended to symbolize a modern, powerful country. Early schemes by architect Edward Durrell Stone imagined a building stretching to the Potomac River and a relocated Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway.
Strengthening Connections
Today, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a world-renowned destination that draws audiences of more than two million annually. However, the freeways surrounding it remain a continuing challenge. Over the years, several ideas have emerged to better connect the Kennedy Center to the riverfront and nearby neighborhoods, including the National Mall.
Courtesy of the Kennedy Center

The REACH (opened 2019) expanded the Kennedy Center’s program space and established new connections to the riverfront.

Perkins Eastman - Urban Design, Dariush Watercolors - Rendering
NCPC, working with federal and District partners, has explored ideas to better connect the Kennedy Center to adjoining neighborhoods and the National Mall by decking over the freeway and creating opportunities for public space, commemoration, and other community-oriented uses, as illustrated in this recent image.
Don't
tear it down!
Library of Congress
The Old Post Office, located at the intersection of 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, was constructed in the 1890s as the U.S. Postal Department headquarters.

Introduction
Washington is known not only for its grand monumental core but also for its charming historic neighborhoods. The city’s intentional preservation effort has roots in the 1960s, when the Kennedy and Johnson administrations supported historic preservation.
A More Beautiful Capital
NCPC Chair Elizabeth “Libby” Rowe enjoyed close ties with both administrations and brought a preservation perspective to planning. She endorsed First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s efforts to rebuild and restore historic Lafayette Square, continued by Mrs. Kennedy’s successor Lady Bird Johnson. Rowe worked with Mrs. Johnson on the first lady’s Committee for a More Beautiful Capital. President Johnson remarked that this “new awareness of our urban environment,” which included the city’s physical landscape, could “make the District the symbol of our best aspirations.”
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and project architect John Carl Warnecke at a press preview of the historic preservation and redevelopment plans for Lafayette Square in 1962.
Photograph by Abbie Rowe, National Park Service Libby Rowe, on the left, plants trees in the triangle park at 22nd Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW, across from the Cosmos Club in April 1966.
The Joint Committee on Landmarks
Under Rowe’s leadership, NCPC and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts formed the Joint Committee on Landmarks (JCL) in 1964. JCL’s List of Landmarks of the Nation’s Capital — mostly federal buildings, embassies, and large institutions — launched Washington’s enduring historic preservation program. The demolition of the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue was halted in 1970 due to the efforts of the group “Don’t Tear It Down” and the building’s inclusion in the JCL’s List of Landmarks.
Photograph by Joe Getty

"Don’t Tear It Down" members Lois Snyderman, Patricia Williams, and Karen Gordon are seen protesting here in 1979.

Library of Congress

This 1973 map shows landmarks designated by the Joint Committee on Landmarks of the National Capital.

Preserving Diverse Stories
  • NCPC

    NCPC prepared this map while considering a pilot historic landmarks project in the Shaw School Urban Renewal Area. It includes the National Council of Negro Women headquarters and home of educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune just southwest of Logan Circle, identified in the map. Because most designated sites were grand buildings associated with White architects and historical figures, the Afro-American Bicentennial Commission formed in 1970 to preserve sites important to the nation’s Black history.

    • 1970
  • Library of Congress

    In 1974, the Afro-American Bicentennial Commission nominated the Bethune House at 1318 Vermont Avenue, NW for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, but the site was not added until in 1982.

    • 1974

Stewards of the City:
home rule and beyond
Photograph by Mr.TinMD/Flckr
Introduction
With the Home Rule Act of 1973, District residents gained the right to elect a mayor and council, ending 100 years of federal governance. Previously, federally appointed boards and commissions largely decided how Washington should develop. Home Rule redefined how planning occurred in Washington.

NCPC continued to advance federal interests and review development on federally controlled land in Washington — about 40 percent of the city — and the surrounding region. The District of Columbia government took over the task of planning in the rest of the city, addressing housing, local economic development, land use, and other community needs.
Home Rule’s Impact on Planning
Home Rule gives the District representation on NCPC, expanding consideration of local perspectives in federal planning decisions.
NCPC
Four of the 12 NCPC Commissioners are appointed by the District's government. Pictured in 1975, the Commission includes (seated) Robert O. Harris, Jacqueline E. Wells, David M. Childs (Chair), Caroline Freeland, Reginald W. Griffith, (standing) Ben W. Gilbert, R. L. Nixon, Thomas W. Ketley, Rodney A. Coleman, and Richard L. Stanton.
Open to the Public
Continuing civil rights activism and local resistance to top-down proposals for urban renewal, new highways, and historic-building demolition all helped make planning more responsive to the needs of impacted communities.

Citizens meet in the District building in 1967 to voice their opposition to highway construction.

Reproduced with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post

Today, public participation is a key element of federal and District planning. The public gather at a 2012 NCPC hearing on the SW Ecodistrict Initiative’s efforts to transform the isolated federal precinct into a walkable, mixed-use area.

NCPC

Planning Together
Washington, uniquely, is the only U.S. city where federal and local agencies share planning responsibilities. NCPC and District agencies collaborate to ensure that Washington serves the needs of local and federal constituencies.

The Comprehensive Plan

NCPC and the DC Office of Planning jointly develop a comprehensive plan that guides federal and District development. Both agencies are incorporating policies that recognize unjust past planning practices and seek to create more equitable outcomes today.

Federal Elements District Elements

NCPC

Pennsylvania Avenue

Championed by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation would plan for and implement the redevelopment of the avenue between the U.S. Capitol and the White House in the early 1970s. The avenue is home to special events and First Amendment demonstrations that attract local and national audiences. Today, NCPC leads a partnership of federal and District agencies to revitalize this nationally important public space that is also key to downtown’s post-pandemic recovery.

Penn Ave Initiative

Planning Starts
with a question
NCPC
The proposed 10th Street, SW corridor in the SW Ecodistrict Plan.
Introduction
Federal planners have played a key role in shaping the nation’s capital and the experiences of the millions who live, work, and visit here.

Here are questions about Washington’s future that NCPC is tackling.
Whose Stories Should Be Told?
As new memorials and museums compete for increasingly limited public space, NCPC encourages consideration of sites off the National Mall and new approaches to commemoration that tell more diverse stories that fully represent the American experience. In 2023, NCPC partnered with the Trust for the National Mall and the National Park Service on Beyond Granite, an exhibition of six installations designed to create a more representative commemorative landscape on the National Mall.

Beyond Granite
Steve Weinik for Beyond Granite

Derrick Adams’s America’s Playground: DC is a fully operational playground that reflects on legacies of leisure, racial division, and transformation in Washington and beyond.

How Can We Be Open and Safe?
How can we keep people and places safe without making public spaces feel unwelcoming? The security impacts of wars and other threats have shaped contemporary Washington — the 9/11 attacks led to ugly temporary barriers on sidewalks and public spaces. As threats continue, solutions must evolve. NCPC developed some of the earliest guidance for urban design and security in public spaces.

Public Space Security
NCPC

This Laurie Olin design, installed in 2005, provides graceful pathways leading to the Washington Monument while providing a barrier from vehicular attacks.

How Should We Grow?
Starting in the 2000s, Washington saw steady population growth and new and transformed neighborhoods as government, businesses, and residents competed for space. Technology and the impacts of COVID-19 are changing how and where people work and get around, potentially transforming office, housing, and transportation patterns once again. NCPC and regional partners are shaping conversations around fair and responsive policies. 

Federal Workplace Study
Golden Triangle Business District

Downtowns are responding to changing ideas about where to live, work, and play. Here, pandemic-inspired “streateries” expand dining options.

How Can Communities Benefit from Federal Development?
Washington has the dual role of capital and local city. NCPC’s 1997 Legacy Plan encouraged federal development beyond downtown to anchor revitalization efforts. But when a new office or museum is proposed, its impacts on surrounding neighborhoods must be considered. Can federal development spark new jobs and investment opportunities? Can large and secure facilities connect to communities?
NoMa Business Improvement District

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Headquarters, designed by Moshe Safdie and completed in 2008, anchors redevelopment in the NoMa neighborhood and an infill Red Line Metro station.

What Are Your
ideas?
You have a voice in how your community looks!
We invite you to share your answers to these questions:
  • What kind of memorial would you like to see?
  • How can we make our public spaces both safe and welcoming?
  • How would you like to see the capital region grow?
  • How can federal development be part of communities?
  • What did you find interesting about this exhibit?

Submitted Entries

I’d like to see a memorial to farmers and agricultural laborers and their importance to feeding society.

Brittney D.

Public spaces can be safe and welcoming with lively spaces nearby, plenty of trees, seating, lighting, and fun activities. People should feel like they belong in those spaces!

Laura S.

I’d like to see more investment east of the Anacostia River!

Prince George’s County Resident

Federal agencies should listen and communicate with local residents, not only once, but on an ongoing basis. Engaging with the community should be a consistent practice.

L. Alexis

What kind of memorial would you like to see?
* One for LGBTQ people victimized by discrimination/violence, and one for workers killed/injured due to their work conditions

How can we make our public spaces both safe and welcoming?
* Put unarmed people on t. . .he streets as security observers / walking companions to reduce desolation and fear in depopulated areas; install more public bathrooms, (working) water fountains, and benches

How would you like to see the capital region grow?
* With high density, public transit, bike lanes, abundant housing at multiple price points

How can federal development be part of communities?
* DC statehood

What did you find interesting about this exhibit?
* The photos and maps are fascinating to examine!

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Ava

Great exhibit! I'd like to see a DC that has more considerations for micromobility, like bikeshare and scooters.

Justin

Memorialize the kidnapped and trafficked Africans who were sold into slavery on the national mall with a monument where the slave pens were. Memorialize every neighborhood where thriving Black communities were wiped out especially in NW and SW DC

Annonymous

I would like to see better designed streets, more protected bike lanes, greater Metro coverage and even tram lines within DC..and please no gadgetbahns.

Michael

What I found most interesting about this exhibit is that planners, including the NCPC, can be wrong with detrimental consequences. The highways that were built through the center of DC were revolted against, such that the Inner Loop was never completed and no one would ever propo. . .se it today.

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Aden Yacobi
Thank you for visiting this exhibit!