For us pro-choice liberals, journeys into Takoma Park are like an ethical vegan attending a rodeo. You want to fit in, but you’re not quite sure how to act, what to say, or what to wear. Do you purchase a sustainable yoga mat made of pressed seaweed and walk around with it rolled under your armpit? Do you wear shorts and accessorize with pride rainbow socks?
I bring this up because earlier this month I attended the annual Takoma Park Street Festival, an earthy gathering occupying downtown’s Carroll Avenue. Some of the fair’s vendors could show up at any municipal fair. The gutter-helmet booth was there, as was the transcendent Kate Stewart booth. There were uniquely Takoma Park vendors, such as the Takoma Park Silver Spring Co-Op, a couple selling Tibetan temple bells, and yoga studios. Everyone was having a good time, including the guy strolling in front of me who reeked of low-quality ganja. Reformers, we can say what we want about the progressives, but when they are in their own element, they are actually quite pleasant.
There are very few areas in Montgomery County with ambiance that oscillates between Takoma Park’s funk and charm. Tract housing is unheard of, and each home is its own architectural masterpiece. Many houses are on large lots, and set back quite a bit from the maze of narrow streets.
Takoma Park’s charm is largely sustained by an anti-growth policy. The implication is that job opportunities in Takoma Park are very limited. The city is home to about 1.6% of the county’s population (2020 census), but offers only 0.9% of the job openings (compare openings for all MoCo and TP only). Many of those openings are in the modestly-compensated classifications of technician, cashier, call center, retail, and teacher, although there is an occasional opening for a dentist and a really enticing offer to be a Secret Service agent.
The anti-growth posture also keeps Takoma Park quite green. All those funky single-family detached lots mean there is lots of room for trees and little free libraries, but precious little room for people who need affordable housing. The following snapshot from realtor.com on October 15 shows that there are double the number of million-dollar homes for sale than there are for those $200,000 or less. That effuses affluence.
On that day, the median offered sale price for a home in Takoma Park was just under $600,000. Doing the loan-officer math (20% down, 7¾% interest, 30 years), you need a gross income of $124,000/year to afford the median-priced house in the city. Indeed.com reports that there are zero jobs in the city with that kind of salary. Apparently, the city’s home buyers are conveniently working somewhere else or they are DINKs.
A jurisdiction that has a housing inventory beyond the reach of most of its residents, or a job market so small that it denies work to many of its residents, is a jurisdiction with no interest in social justice or racial equity. It’s a jurisdiction that is heartless, an adjective I’ve applied to progressives in many Clean Slate posts (this one, this one, and this one).
Pro-choice liberals like myself freely judge but never coerce: if a city wants to be heartless, that’s not OK, but as a group liberals don’t force compassion on those who lack it.
It’s quite the opposite for the progressives. Even though it has only 1.6% of the county’s population, Takoma Park has outsized representation in our leading elected offices. Of the county’s 19 top officials (county executive, county council, school board), two (11%) are from Takoma Park (Elrich, Stewart), and that’s down from three out of 17 officials (20%) for decades prior. Their over-sized representation gives Takoma Park’s residents the opportunity to force their affluent values on all of our county’s residents, particularly the poor. The results are turmoil in the schools, a prejudiced council member, and no affordable housing. If Takoma Park’s activists would keep to themselves, we’d all be better off, and so would they.
