A Right to the City

How Washingtonians have shaped and reshaped their neighborhoods in extraordinary ways. After a half-century of population decline and disinvestment, Washington, DC, today is home to a rapidly growing population, rising rents and home prices, major new development projects, but also deepening inequality. A Right to the City explores more than five decades of neighborhood change in the nation’s capital as well as the rich history of organizing and civic engagement that accompanied it. Highlighting six neighborhoods across the city—Adams Morgan, Anacostia, Brookland, Chinatown, Shaw, and Southwest—the exhibition tells the story of how ordinary Washingtonians have helped shape and reshape their neighborhoods in extraordinary ways: through the fight for quality public education, for healthy and green communities, for equitable development and transit, and for a genuinely democratic approach to city planning. Through an initiative called Offsite and In the City launched while the museum was closed for upgrades, the Adams Morgan, Anacostia, Brookland, and Shaw sections of A Right to the City were reproduced into satellite exhibits and on view in DC Public Library locations in Mt. Pleasant, Anacostia, Woodridge, and Shaw. These satellite exhibits remain available for viewing at those library locations complemented by public programs onsite through the run of the museum-based show.

Learn more about Offsite and in the City at DCPL.

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