The Maps That Explain D.C.'s Comprehensive Plan

David Whitehead sifts through the 600 pages of the D.C. Comprehensive Plan and identifies the two maps that provide access to the plan's core ideas. 

"DC has a giant planning document called the Comprehensive Plan. Most of it is super dense and complicated, but its goal is to lay the foundation for many city-wide decisions, in particular decisions on land use," explains Whitehead. "Partially because of its size and obscurity, many people just focus on two maps that exist as part of the Comp Plan: the Future Land Use Map (FLUM), and the Generalized Policy Map."

Whitehead then digs into both of the two maps, illuminating the key ideas that will help guide an understanding of these already most accessible parts of the D.C. Comprehensive Plan.

But then, there's a caveat. According to Whitehead, "[t]here's one big issue with both of these maps: they tend to preserve the status quo—more specifically, the status quo of 2006, which is when the Comp Plan was created." Luckily, Whitehead reports that the D.C. Office of Planning is "organizing an effort to amend and update the Comprehensive Plan."