21st Century (2000–present)

Washington DC Comprehensive Plan 2021

2021 · United States · North America · Ecological, landscape-led, and resilience planning · Planned by DC Office of Planning
L'Enfant Plan of Washington, D.C. (1791) — the founding city plan whose radial-and-grid framework underlies the Comprehensive Plan.
L'Enfant Plan of Washington, D.C. (1791) — the founding city plan whose radial-and-grid framework underlies the Comprehensive Plan. · Public Domain · Pierre Charles L'Enfant, 1791 (facsimile, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey / Library of Congress)

Core idea

Equitable growth + resilience

Why it matters

Statutory guidance for federal district

Description

The 2021 amendment of the Comprehensive Plan for Washington, DC, prepared by the DC Office of Planning and approved by the Council of the District of Columbia. It updates the framework guiding land use in the federal district around equitable growth, affordable housing distribution across all neighbourhoods, and resilience to flooding and climate change, while operating within the constraints of the federal interest, the height limit and the L'Enfant-McMillan inheritance. It is a policy plan that guides zoning rather than a physical design.

Significance

The update marked a shift in Washington planning from monumental and federal concerns towards racial equity and housing justice, following sustained civic contest over gentrification in the district. It illustrates how twenty-first-century comprehensive planning in US cities has become primarily an instrument of social and climate policy layered over inherited Baroque and City Beautiful frameworks.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.