Designed by Daniel, for decision-makers. Like you.
Our Neighborhood by the Numbers
We make better decisions when we base them on evidence. The choices we make today will set our path through 2029. I believe our community has the potential for transformational growth, but we won't get there by accident. Planning for the future means reflecting on the past, so this dashboard takes an in-depth look at our Single Member District over the past decade. By shining a light on 6A06, I hope we can make the best decisions for our community and hold our leaders accountable for outcomes. Policy is a practice, and we only improve if we're willing to change and grow. Where we are today is not the best we can be: the corridor is half empty, dark windows mark where businesses used to be, and our economy is struggling to get back to vibrancy. There are brighter days ahead. Evidence-based decision-making is how we get from darkness to progress. Let's grow, 6A06.
Explore this page at your own pace. Move the slider at the top to go back in time and see a snapshot of where we've been. Everything is interactive and designed to help you draw connections and find new insights. It's up to you to decide where we go next. Vote by November 3rd.
When I call a storefront dark, I mean nobody is open for business behind the glass. I use the word on purpose. A dark window takes light off the sidewalk, takes away the people who keep an eye on the street from behind the counter, and gives everyone one less reason to walk down the block. Empty streets feel less safe, because they are less safe. Sitting a police car on every block with its lights on all night is not a sustainable solution, and it actually signals to people that there is good reason to be fearful. The long-term solution is not more police, it is more people.
You might disagree with that assertion, and that's OK. This data is meant to spark discussion between neighbors and to encourage our leaders to make more informed decisions and measure outcomes. In this dashboard I've made an effort to refrain from editorializing, but I do think about these issues, and my views are informed. You can read more about my priorities here.
Researchers have tested what happens when you bring light and people back, and some of the strongest evidence comes from randomized trials, the same method used to test new medicines.
Randomized trials
- Randomized trial −36%serious crime outdoors at night
Light cuts nighttime crime
In 2016, New York City randomly picked 40 of 80 public housing developments to get bright temporary light towers. Researchers estimate that serious crime outdoors at night, in and around those developments, fell at least 36%.
Chalfin, Hansen, Lerner & Parker, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 2022 - Randomized trial −13%gun assaults around the fixed houses
Fixing abandoned houses cuts gun violence
Philadelphia randomly assigned 258 abandoned houses to a full fix (working windows and doors, trash cleared, weeds cut), a trash and weed cleanup only, or nothing. Around the fully fixed houses, gun assaults fell an estimated 13% and weapons violations 8%. The cleanup alone made no significant difference.
South, MacDonald, Tam, Ridgeway & Branas, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2023 - Randomized trial −29%gun assaults in neighborhoods below the poverty line
Fixing up vacant lots cuts gun violence and fear
Philadelphia randomly assigned 541 vacant lots to be cleaned and planted, cleaned up only, or left alone. In neighborhoods below the poverty line, gun assaults near the treated lots fell an estimated 29%. Near the greened lots, people's fear of going outside because of safety fell 58%, and their use of outdoor space for relaxing and socializing rose 76%.
Branas, South, Kondo, Hohl, Bourgois, Wiebe & MacDonald, PNAS, 2018
More studies pointing the same way
- Quasi-experiment −39%gun assaults near fixed buildings
Making owners fix doors and windows
After Philadelphia began requiring owners of abandoned buildings to install working doors and windows, assaults, gun assaults and nuisance crimes fell around the buildings that complied, compared with matched buildings that weren't fixed. A follow-up study of the same buildings put the drop in gun assaults at 39%.
- Quasi-experiment +19%violent crime once a home sits empty
Vacancy is what does the damage
In Pittsburgh, violent crime within 250 feet of a foreclosed home rose about 19% once the home went vacant, and the effect grew the longer it sat empty. The foreclosure by itself had no measurable effect.
Cui & Walsh, Journal of Urban Economics, 2015 - Field experiment 2×theft beside graffiti
Visible neglect invites more of it
In a Dutch field experiment, an envelope with a €5 note plainly visible was left hanging out of a mailbox. When the mailbox was clean, 13% of passersby took it. When it was covered in graffiti, 27% did.
Keizer, Lindenberg & Steg, Science, 2008 - Systematic review −14%crime, averaged over 17 studies
Light works in daylight, too
Across 17 studies, better street lighting cut crime 14% on average, and the drop was bigger in studies that counted daytime crime as well. An earlier review of 13 studies found 21% and suggested light works partly as a sign that someone is invested in the place.
Yellow numbers show what changed after a place was lit or fixed up. Gray ones show what happened while it sat empty or neglected.
Dark frontage feeds itself. Every empty window means fewer people on the sidewalk, which means fewer eyes on the street and fewer customers for the businesses still open, which makes the next lease harder to sign. Along H Street, ground-floor retail vacancy has roughly doubled since 2020, to 26%, and foot traffic on the 12th-to-15th stretch fell 36% from 2019 to 2025 (DC Office of Planning). On the blocks this page tracks, 18 of 39 storefronts are dark today.
None of these studies looked at storefronts on H Street, and I wouldn't promise their exact numbers here. What they tested is what a dark storefront takes away: light, a building that looks cared for, and people on the sidewalk. That's why this page counts dark storefronts, and why I think a lit window is worth fighting for, whether it's a new business, a pop-up, an art installation or a venue that comes back. It's also why I want to cut the permitting and licensing delays that keep ground floors empty.
Rank Daniel Aboagye #1 for ANC Commissioner
I gathered this data because we shouldn't make our decisions in the dark. Evidence-based policy making leads to better outcomes for all, and it's the foundation of my approach to leading our community forward.
Say yes to progress.
Early voting October 26th · Election Day November 3rd
Storefront timeline
Each bar is a business. The dotted gaps are the months nobody was there (some of those gaps are years). Striped stretches show what an empty storefront is turning into, where anyone has said.
Vacancy
The storefronts from above, on the same DC base map every section below uses, zoomed to the commercial corner. A storefront is gray when it's dark on the date at the top and blue when a business is open (why darkness makes a difference). Press Play to watch them go dark and light up. The button on the map shows all of 6A06, and the switches under it lay data from the other sections on top.
Dark storefronts over time
How many of the storefronts were dark, month by month. A storefront goes dark the day its last business closes and stays dark until the next one opens.
Dark storefronts
The empty ones, longest first. The longest, 1363 H St NE, has had no licensed business since about 2010.
| Address | Last tenant | Closed | Dark for | Status |
|---|
Business activity
Signs of investment and churn around the storefronts: visitors, new licenses, approved uses, permits and the city's small business grants. The dashed line on each chart marks the start of the pandemic. The thin line on each chart is the share of storefronts dark, for comparison. Grants also show on the storefront timeline as small green diamonds, on the row of the business that got them.
Small business grants
| Business | Address | Program | Fiscal year | Amount |
|---|
Safety
Crime, gunfire, crashes and street lighting inside 6A06. Every chart highlights the year on the slider. On the map, crashes and ShotSpotter alerts stay up for the look-back period set in the bar at the top, 3 months unless you change it. Crashes that involved a pedestrian or cyclist glow, and in the month one happens the rest of the map dims for a moment. The white line through the crime bars is the share of storefronts dark, from the vacancy chart, for comparison; it doesn't show cause in either direction.
Safety map
Crashes and ShotSpotter alerts are mapped where police recorded them, usually a street or intersection. Streetlights are DDOT's pole locations. Use the switches under the map to lay other sections' data on top, like the storefronts or 311 requests.
Sanitation
What neighbors report to 311 and how long the city takes to close those requests. The map puts each request at the address in DC's public file; it shows no names or request details.
311 over the longer run
Sanitation map
Each dot is an address; bigger dots had more requests in the look-back period ending at the slider's month. Pick a request type above the map.
Transit
How many cars use the two big streets, how busy the nearest bikeshare docks are, and where parking tickets get written. The bikeshare chart is monthly, so the slider's month is marked on it; click either line chart to move the slider.
Transit map
Three bands along H Street: the streetcar on the north side, cars in the middle and the X2, later D20, bus on the south side, with their stops. Each band is wider when that mode was busier, measured against its own 2019 level, so press Play and watch them swell and shrink. Maryland Avenue shows its car traffic and whether it had four lanes, was being rebuilt, or had its road diet on the slider's date. Streetcar, bus and bikeshare cover the look-back period; parking tickets sit where DC's file places them.
Housing
Two things decide how many neighbors we have: how many homes get built, and how many existing homes get rented out by the night instead of lived in. On the first, Ward 6 kept going through the 2020s and our blocks mostly stopped.
Housing map
Lodging licenses in force on the date at the top, and buildings in DC's vacant records, each at its address. Vacant buildings appear once DOB first registered them.
Vacant and blighted buildings
| Address | On DC's list | DOB status | First registered vacant | Notes |
|---|
A whole home rented by the night is a home nobody lives in. DC passed a law in 2018 to rein in short-term rentals. The number of active listings is about where it was in 2017. What changed is who runs them: fewer hosts, each running more of them. These numbers come from what's actually listed on Airbnb and from DLCP's own enforcement records (I got those through a FOIA request). Both are DC-wide, since neither source breaks things out by neighborhood.
The rules today, and what the Mayor's bill would change
The 2018 law took effect in 2019, and DLCP started issuing licenses in January 2022. On March 13, 2026, the Council received a bill from Mayor Bowser that would rewrite parts of it, the Short-Term Rental Regulation Amendment Act of 2026 (B26-0647). It was sent to the Committee on Public Works and Operations and hasn't had a hearing. Bills still pending when the Council's two-year term ends, at noon on January 2, 2027, expire.
| Topic | The law today | Under B26-0647 |
|---|---|---|
| Who can host | A person, never a company. LLCs and corporations can't hold a license, and the host has to own the home, so renters can't get one. | Still people only. Renters could host in the home they live in with the owner's written permission and a copy of the lease, except in rent-stabilized units. |
| Where | Only the host's primary residence, which the law defines as a home that qualifies for the homestead tax deduction. A basement apartment counts as part of the home. | A primary residence would be where the host lives most of the year, and an owner would have to actually receive the homestead deduction. A host who owns and lives in a DC home could also license one second property they own here, and that license would end if they left DC. |
| How many nights | No limit while the host is home. Renting the whole place while away takes a separate vacation rental license and is capped at 90 nights a year, with exemptions for reasons like an out-of-town job or medical treatment. No stay can run longer than 30 nights. | One license instead of two, still capped at 90 nights a year, counting only the nights the host is away. A second property would get its own 90 nights, and nights when someone lives there year-round wouldn't count. |
| Special events | No separate rule. | A new $49 license for the inauguration, the Cherry Blossom Festival, the Fourth of July and other events the Mayor names. Listings could run from a week before each event to a week after, up to 30 nights a year, with no host present, and those nights wouldn't count toward the 90. |
| Proof | Proof that the home qualifies for the homestead deduction, plus insurance and working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. | Also a DC driver's license or ID and two other proofs of DC residency, like a voter registration or a utility bill, and a statement that the host owes the city no fines or back taxes over set limits. Hosts would have 14 business days to tell DLCP if they sell, their lease ends or they leave DC. |
| Fines | $250 for a first violation, $500 for a second, and $1,000 plus automatic loss of the license for a third. The 2018 law set them at $500, $2,000 and $6,000 and let the Mayor change them by rule, which the city did in 2021. | The same amounts, but they could be charged for breaking any part of the law. After a revocation, both the host and the property would be barred from a new license for two years, unless the property changed hands. |
| Booking sites | Airbnb and the others must collect each host's license number before booking so it can appear on the listing, stop booking a rental within 5 business days of DLCP saying its license was suspended or revoked, hold vacation rentals to 90 nights, and collect lodging taxes, or pay $1,000 per booking. The 2018 law also told them to send DLCP a monthly report of every DC booking with the host's name and address. The city's rules made that a report DLCP can ask for, and DLCP told the Council in 2024 that it only requires platforms to provide license numbers. | Booking sites would need a DC business license, and the license number requirement would be written into the law itself. The bill doesn't change what they report to DLCP. |
The law doesn't cover hotels, inns, motels, rooming houses or bed-and-breakfasts, which are licensed separately under other rules. 1417 Maryland Ave holds an inn license, and 1447 Maryland Ave holds a bed-and-breakfast license even though its certificate of occupancy covers apartments only (both are marked on the housing chart above).
Sources: D.C. Code §§ 30-201.01 to 30-201.10; DLCP's short-term rental rules, 14 DCMR Chapter 99 (D.C. Register, Dec. 3, 2021); B26-0647 as sent to the Council and DLCP's announcement, Mar. 13, 2026; DLCP's January 2024 answers to the Council; bill status from LegiScan, checked Oct. 20, 2026.
Lodging licenses inside 6A06
DLCP's enforcement numbers above are citywide, but its license records have addresses. These are the short-term rental, vacation rental, bed-and-breakfast and inn licenses for addresses inside 6A06, each mapped at its address.
What enforcement looks like
Most cases don't start with a complaint. DLCP uses a monitoring service from Granicus, a government software company, that scans more than 60 booking sites for DC listings. In fiscal 2023 DLCP flagged 1,205 properties as out of compliance: 574 found by its short-term rental staff, 521 by Granicus and 110 through the hotline. In September 2025 it started going ward by ward, with Ward 1 first and Wards 3 and 4 in November. Unlicensed hosts get a warning letter and 10 business days to get a license or take the listing down, and the ones who do neither are referred for a notice of infraction. In fiscal 2025 that process turned up 139 properties: 65 came into compliance and 52 got notices. Complaints still come in, too. Besides the hotline, DLCP takes them through an online form, and it counted 132 short-term rental complaints in fiscal 2025.
How I put this together
Everything here comes from public records: DLCP business license and certificate of occupancy records, ABCA license records and board orders, ANC 6A minutes, the H Street Main Street directory, the DC tax roll for ownership, Inside Airbnb, and local reporting. The sections below the storefronts use DC's open data files for 311 requests, crashes, ShotSpotter alerts, streetlights, vacant buildings, grants, permits, licenses, parking tickets, traffic counts and Capital Bikeshare trips, each cut to the 6A06 boundary. Records are mapped at the address in the public file. Residents are never named, and neither are property owners who are private individuals. Dates are to the month unless the day is known, and a ~ means it's an estimate.
If something here is wrong or missing (a business I skipped, a date that's off, a storefront that's quietly reopened), tell me at daniel@aboagye.org. I'll fix it.
Daniel Aboagye
Corrections and changes
All businesses as a table
| Address | Business | Opened | Closed | Years |
|---|