Another Brick in the Ward

June 29, 2016 // originally published as a DMPED Chart of the Week

DC is a city with a diversity of people, businesses, and neighborhoods. But walking along the city’s residential streets you may notice one aspect of the city that isn’t particularly diverse at all - facades of DC homes. DC is home to almost exclusively brick homes. The map below shows each residential properties in the District by facade. More than three-quarters of home facades in DC are brick. While brick homes are prevalent across the District, they are most common in the District’s oldest neighborhoods. Brick would’ve been the most common building material at the time and, in some areas, historic preservation limits the building materials that can be used today. In Ward 1 over 90% of homes are brick. Houses become more diverse further from the core of the city, where homes are likely to be newer. Wards 3 and 8, located at opposite ends of the District, have the most diversity of home facades.

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Technical notes: Data are available through DC’s open data website. You can find complete code for this on my github page.