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Washington Highlands is a residential neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., in the United States. It lies within Ward 8, and is one of the poorest and most crime-ridden sections of the city. Most residents live in large public and low-income apartment complexes, although there are extensive tracts of single-family detached homes in the neighborhood. ==Development of Washington Highlands== Washington Highlands is bounded by 13th Street SE on the northeast, Oxon Run Park on the northwest and southwest, and Southern Avenue on the southeast. The neighborhood is situated on a series of high hills overlooking the creek known as Oxon Run. It draws its name from the city of Washington, D.C., and the hills on which it was built. At the time of European colonization of North America, the area known as Washington Highlands was occupied by Nacotchtank tribe of Native Americans, a non-migratory band whose villages lined the northern and southern banks of the Anacostia River. The Nacochtanks were decimated by disease brought to the New World by European explorers, and disappeared by 1700 AD. The flat area below the highlands became farms owned by white settlers, with large numbers of African American slaves working the fields. The development of Washington Highlands closely parallels that of the adjacent neighborhood of Congress Heights. In 1890, Colonel Arthur E. Randle, a successful newspaper publisher, decided to found a settlement east of the river which he called Congress Heights. The Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge (now the John Philip Sousa Bridge) began construction in November 1887, and by June 1890 was nearing completion. Randle understood that this new bridge would bring rapid development east of the Anacostia River, and he intended to take advantage of it. The development was immediately successful. To ensure that his investment continued to pay off, Randle invested heavily in the Belt Railway, a local streetcar company founded in March 1875. On March 2, 1895, Randle founded the Capital Railway Company to construct streetcar lines over the Navy Yard Bridge and down Nichols Avenue to Congress Heights. Developers began laying out Washington Highlands in 1904, and by August 1905 most of the subdivision's roads and tracts had been laid out. Hungerford's addition was added to the neighborhood in 1906. Fourth Street SE was opened in 1910 after a three-year effort,〔; 〕 although growth slowed for the next few years. By 1925, however, there were enough residents in the neighborhood to form a Washington Highlands Citizen Association. The city denied a 1927 request of citizens in the area for sewer lines to be built in their neighborhood. There were too few residents in the area to justify the expense. But despite the effects of the Great Depression, development in the Washington Highlands area continued. In 1936 and 1937, more than 200 homes were built in the neighborhood, and in 1938 the city connected the area to the sewer system via the large Oxon Run sewer main. The sewer system brought even more substantial growth. Another 250 homes were built in the neighborhood in 1938, and 100 more were planned. Even so, large parts of Washington Highlands remained undeveloped: Many streets existed only on paper, and the southern end of the area was primarily still farmland. World War II brought significant changes Washington Highlands. The war brought hundreds of thousands of defense workers into the city, creating a severe housing shortage. Congress created the National Capital Housing Authority (NCHA) to build extensive low-income housing throughout the region to alleviate the shortage. In 1942, the NCHA built the 256-unit Highland Dwellings. In the fall of 1943, the NCHA approved a plan to build more than 300 low-income homes in Washington Heights, and private developers agreed to build another 150. Washington Highland residents were angry that their neighborhood was being turned into a low-income area, but the NCHA pushed the plan through. The low-income housing boom continued in the area in the post-war period, with hundreds more homes being built. The post-war baby boom led to a significant increase in children in the area. After years of city inaction on recreational facilities in the neighborhood, the Washington Highlands Citizens Association successfully petitioned the city to take over the United States Navy's Bald Eagle storage facility and turn it into a recreational center. Washington Highlands was one of the first areas of the District of Columbia where housing was desegregated. Until the 1950s, law as well as housing covenants created by developers excluded African Americans from many neighborhoods in the city. But in 1951, the NCHA announced it would not longer segregate its housing complexes in Washington Highlands, and opened them to black residents. It began implementing its policy in 1953 This sparked a strong backlash from whites in Washington Highlands, which at that time had almost no African American residents.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Washington Highlands, Washington, D.C.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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