Greater Greater Washington's Happy Hour At Sonny's Pizza

Getting there by public transportation, was easy. It's going to get even easier when the new bus network takes effect, June 29, 2025. The pizza was ok.

Sonny’s Pizza. I don’t know how long they have been opened, but I remember when that area of DC was a crime-infested ghetto. The clientele? From my observation, the customers were more than likely, 99% college degreed professionals. Many of them are probably working in the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, and ancillary Industrial Complexes, or work for the government. In other words, I didn’t see any customers that looked like plumbers or electricians. I can’t remember anyone in the trades, ever putting their pronouns on a name tag, or talking about “multi-modal,” and “intersectionality.” Welcome to the double-edged sword of gentrification.

That area of DC, Columbia Heights, has been gentrifying for years. So has the adjacent neighborhood, Petworth. Georgia Avenue has changed. When I first moved to DC in 1980, that part of the city was dangerous. Very dangerous! You wouldn’t want to walk there in broad daylight, let alone after the sun set for the evening.

Planners refer to those areas of the city as “emerging.” I say it’s mostly “emerged,” but it still has just enough grit, to give it some character. Then, there is the cost of housing…

Cities have character. So do small towns, but that’s a different kind of character. For the most part, small towns have become pretty much stable in their character development. When it comes to urban culture and character, most small town and rural residents take this position about cities: “They are nice places to visit, but I would never want to live their.” My response is, “Why not?” For me, I’m glad that I live close enough to the city, so I can enjoy its cultural offerings. What keeps me from moving back into the city? The cost of housing. I’ve been in my house since 1982. I’m close to the Metro, and starting on June 29th, there is a new bus network. I’m not going anywhere.

City culture is constantly changing, and so is urban character. Every city in the world that I’ve visited, and as a member of the USAF Band I visited many while on tour, is different. They are also constantly evolving. Some for the good, and some for the bad. It’s the various urbanist organizations, most of whom being nonprofits, that help guide the city’s character and culture.

Greater Greater Washington, is one of those nonprofits. I disagree with about 99.9% of GGW’s politics. I’m a conservative, and the organization, and using a back of the envelope calculation, I’d guess that 99.9% of their followers, are not. However, we do share the same vision as far as making Washington, DC, a world class city. We just disagree on how to get there. Also, I don’t give a rat’s ass about pronouns or high-horse virtue signaling. When you are a conservative urbanist, you learn to tolerate liberals, even the ones that are pompous asses.

It costs money to make a city great. Most of that money has to come from the middle classes. There are not enough rich people, to pay for that greatness. The emphasis should be on making urban areas safe and affordable for the working, lower middle, and middle-middle classes, so they will want to live the city, and enjoy its conveniences, just like the good old days, before they all fled to the suburbs.

You can’t just have struggling, because of the cost of housing and taxes, upper-middle class professionals and above at one end, and the poor who serve them, and those competing for those poverty-level service industry jobs at the other. It’s the old supply and demand. Flood the market with cheap labor, legal and/or illegal. It’s how you keep the cost of service industry labor down. The more of something there is, the less that something costs. Now, even the upper-middle classes can have nannies, and regular maid service, despite the fact that they are struggling, because of the cost of housing and taxes.

On GGW’s website, it says there will be another happy hour at Sonny’s Pizza in July. The plan is for it to happen once a month. I’m planning on going. Also, rather than driving to the Metro station, I’m going to walk to the bus stop, and use the new bus network to get me to and from the Metro station, and Sonny’s Pizza. I’m sure Greater Greater Washington’s advocacy for better public transportation, figured somewhere in the equation, of Metro’s complete overhaul of their bus service. I’m sure it will be talked about at the next Sonny’s Pizza happy hour.