ABSTRACT
The city was changing at a breakneck speed. After decades of White flight, young professionals were moving back to Washington, DC, anxious for a taste of the city life their parents had left a generation before. To meet the demand, developers converted scores of dilapidated apartment buildings into condominiums, while contractors and individual homebuyers purchased, gutted, and restored house after house in poor, run-down areas of the old L’Enfant city. As higher-income people moved in, housing prices skyrocketed, attracting even more speculators, investors, and homebuyers eager to capitalize on the boom.
