DC housing growth is actually underdeveloped overall, despite condos and gentrification

The lion's share of DCs new housing growth is only going in one part of the city
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/27633/the-lions-share-of-dcs-new-housing-is-only-going-in-one-part-of-the-city/

This article explains how, ironically, much of DCs housing is underdeveloped and below city planners' projections, despite the boom of new condos and gentrification in the city core that most visitors see. This planner Payton Chung says that the vast majority of the new housing in DC is located in just two core areas, while the rest of DC has been neglected.

This is verified each time I take a spin around DC in the car. As soon as you leave the core with its endless condos, flipped old townhouses, and newly-named old neighborhoods, you quickly see a switch--often starting just a block or two outside the core--to old underdeveloped neighborhoods that stretch around the the rest of DC to the periphery.

This helps to explain why DC housing is so unaffordable. In general, affordable housing--including regular middle class affordable--has to be built further out on the periphery where land is cheaper. So if all the development takes place in the core only, it is a virtual guarantee that none of it will be affordable.

Bottom line: there is great untapped potential to rejuvenate whole neighborhoods in DC beyond the core with affordable housing.