The Sugar

If you drive away from the center of Washington, DC on East Capitol Street, around RFK Stadium and across the Anacostia River, you eventually come to the intersection with Benning Road, and a Denny's. For the last decade, the pancake emporium has been the only-sit down restaurant in Ward 7 and as such a symbol of the struggle to bring economic development and a decent life to the mostly low-income DC residents east of the river. This is one of the real dillemmas of urban development: people in low-income neighborhoods like Wards 7 & 8 may have little money per-capita, but they still have a fair amount of money collectively, since there are a lot people living there. And so businesses locate there to serve that market. But they tend not to be very good businesses from a quality-of-life standpoint; if you drive up and down Benning Road you see a lot signs for businesses that conveniently sell multiple things that are bad for you in the same place, e.g. "Checks Cashed, Instant Tax Refund" or "Lottery / Beer / Liquor" or  "Burritos, Chinese Take-Out, Fried Shrimp." 

The city of DC has been taking steps in recent years to try and fix this, as with a new government-subsidized shopping complex in Ward 8 that recently opened up, complete with a Giant supermarket, a Wachovia bank, and other sorts of businesses that one might find in the more affluent parts of the city and surrounding suburbs. And directly adjacent to the complex there's a brand-new IHOP that was filled with customers at 10:30 this morning, all eating at the first sit-down restaurant the area has had in a long time. 

But there's another business thriving in the various run-down strip malls east of the river: dialysis centers. Wards 7 & 8 appear to have been struck by the diabetes epidemic that is afflicting communities nationwide. And the only two sit-down restaurants east of the river, parking lots full because these are the only options the free market provides, are in the business of selling their customers liquid sugar. 

All of which is to say that it's complicated, this business of understanding and managing the intersection of market forces, private capital, consumer choice, public infrastructure, and multiple concerns of health, employment, and quality of life. And there are implications for public education, particularly as the public, non-profit, and private education sectors increasingly co-mingle. You'll see see more from us on this topic in the coming months.