POST Local

A city cannot live by Beach Bars alone. (Fritz Hahn - The Washington Post) Our city has changed. It’s a “magnet for ambitious 20-somethings.” It offers “good jobs and better-than-average public transit,” not to mention cupcake shops. It’s “an urban playground.” So notes my colleague Jonathan O’Connell, who asks an accompanying question in a Sunday Outlook piece: Can the city change along with its ambitious 20-somethings? “What D.C. hasn’t yet figured out, or even really planned for, is what happens when this raft of newcomers grows out of one-bedroom condo living,” he writes. “What happens when their lives evolve past the urban-playground stage and they are less interested in speakeasies than in parks for their kids?”

In other news:

Marion Barry exacts incomplete revenge on erstwhile supporter (Loose Lips)

He misspoke. He should have said Polish. (D.C. Wire)

“Perhaps it’s time we started to look at him as a sweet old fellow who just says whatever comes to mind.” (Washingtonian)

D.C. is still suing Don Peebles over Anacostia building’s rent (WBJ)

Mark Segraves’s final interview with Chuck Brown (DC50)

Uber’s promise of a “cheap, classy ride” has been dogged by regulatory questions. (Bill O'Leary - The Washington Post)

You’ll recall early this year when this town was consumed by talk of Uber — the upscale app-dispatched car service — that was the subject of a sting operation by city taxi inspectors.

Uber and its moment of government oppression became the stuff of national ruminations on innovation and regulation (and, more recently, urban decadence).

Through it all, Uber has carried on with its service, maintaining that it’s following all applicable laws and regulations, while the D.C. Taxicab Commission has more or less adopted a policy of salutary neglect.

It now seems, however, that Uber could become uber-legal relatively soon under draft legislation recently passed by a D.C. Council committee. The bill, a rewrite of a broad taxi reform package, includes provisions for a new type of for-hire transportation — “sedan class vehicles.”

(Danielle West) Because only you can prevent substandard municipal way-finding, I share another batch of ugly street signs, courtesy of the District of DeBonis army of eagle-eyed signage watchdogs.

Above, from Andrew Wiseman, behold a particularly ugly one, with a weird skinny capital V and a mixed-case quadrant indicator.

Transportation department spokesman John Lisle says the city is on it: “Obviously we want our signs to be consistent and accurate, and we will continue to work internally to ensure there is adequate quality control in the process for approving and fabricating signs to prevent these types of errors.” If you see a bad sign, call 311, visit 311.dc.gov, or tweet at Lisle at @DDOTDC.

After the jump, behold several subpar specimens captured by Columbia Heights resident Mark McDevitt.

Wind us up, one more time. (Marvin Joseph - The Washington Post)

I might have “jumped the gun,” but I wasn’t wrong: Our civic farewell to Chuck Brown gets underway Tuesday with a public viewing at the Howard Theatre, on Chuck Brown Way (aka the 600 block of T Street), from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. His grand sendoff will continue Thursday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center at noon for a scheduled three-hour memorial service. Hamil Harris has more details over at The Root DC. He speaks to Howard Theatre developer Chip Ellis, who lamented Brown never played in his gleaming new space: “God had another plan.”

In other news:

Tom Toles on the Gray campaign’s downward spiral (Post cartoon)

Guess who had the Worst Week in Washington (The Fix)

Listen to Marion Barry’s ”polack” comment (SoundCloud)

Barry also confused his Asian female Channel 9 reporters (@suraechinn)

Friday is “Trayvon Martin Day” at Malcolm X Elementary in Congress Heights (WJLA-TV)

Cameras and controversy: Barry’s elixir of life. (Ricky Carioti - WASHINGTON POST) As predicted, Marion Barry apologized today for his recent Asian-related comments. But he managed to restart his Cycle of Redemption even sooner than anticipated when, in the course of tendering his public apology, he said the following: “The Irish caught hell, the Jews caught hell, the Polacks caught hell.” Poles, of course, do not care to be called Polacks. And, yes, via Buzzfeed, a Polish-American group is already demanding an apology.

In other news:

From Sarah Godfrey, as good an appreciation of Chuck Brown as you’ll read (City Paper)

Why Vincent Gray isn’t doomed (WRC-TV)

New 11th Street Bridge local span is now open (DCist)

Where the new speed cameras will be (MPD)

Mitt Romney again speaks well of D.C. school vouchers (WaTimes)