The Washington-Liberty Generals girls varsity basketball team is adjusting well to a new coach, the loss of key players and the arrival of new faces.
In addition, first-year coach Horace “Buck” Willis is adapting to the new experience of leading a girls squad.
The Arlington Education Association (AEA) is calling for a boycott of Starbucks in solidarity with a unionization campaign.
The local teachers’ union announced yesterday (Thursday) that it had joined the “No Contract, No Coffee” campaign, urging the public not to patronize the coffeehouse until a contract is reached with Starbucks Workers United.
This regularly scheduled column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. If you would like to work with Eli and his team in Northern Virginia and the greater D.C. Metro area, you can reach him directly at [email protected].
Question: How much of an impact do you think the ROAD to Housing Act will have on housing affordability in Arlington?
Answer: The Road to Housing Act became law ten days ago, with the stated goal of improving housing affordability in the United States.
I don’t see many policies in the Act that will improve affordability in the Arlington/Northern VA/DC Metro markets, outside of incentives for more affordable multi-family housing, but there are policies that should improve affordability in other markets that are more saturated with institutional investors that own swaths of single-family homes (e.g. Atlanta and Phoenix) and for manufactured/mobile homes.
The Local Conversation Needs to Change
If we are going to improve affordability in our market, most of the change has to be done locally/regionally, not nationally, but it requires a paradigm shift in how we discuss and solve for housing affordability.
Affordability Disconnect: Near Term Expectations Not Realistic
A disconnect between housing affordability expectations and reality prevents the right community and political conversations from happening. We expect/demand housing affordability immediately, ignoring the difficulty, and consequences, of achieving it that quickly.
Stable and healthy housing affordability is a long-term process requiring gradual change over a 10-15+ year period.
Demand-Side Solutions Won’t Work
Demand-side solutions, such as lower interest rates or easier financing, artificially inflate home values, as seen during the COVID-era housing boom and early 2000s. They are not a good long-term solution to affordability because they push values even higher (along with your property taxes) and affordability gets worse when rates/lending normalize and no longer provide artificially low monthly payments.
Supply-Side Solutions Are Not Immediate
Most policy discussions focus on supply-side solutions: building more/faster and denser housing (e.g. Arlington’s Missing Middle/Expanded Housing Option), incentivizing more existing home sales, or disincentivizing concentrated ownership by companies and individuals. Econ 101 tells us that more supply = lower prices = affordable housing (winner winner!).
This is the only path to stable, long-term housing affordability…BUT, at current interest rates, prices must drop 30-35% in the United States to become affordable, at current income levels. A 30-35% drop in home values would devastate the economy, so a supply-side solution won’t (shouldn’t) provide immediate affordability. (more…)
County Board Chair Swearing In — “The Arlington County Board Office invites the public to attend the swearing-in of Chair Takis Karantonis as a member of the Arlington County Board on Tuesday, December 16. The swearing-in will begin at 6PM with a reception to follow. This will be held at the County Board room on the 3rd floor of the Bozman Government Center, 2100 Clarendon Blvd.” [Arlington County]
Assault on Officer in Shirlington — “At approximately 3:27 p.m. on December 10, officers conducted a traffic stop and determined the driver was operating the vehicle with a suspended license. During the course of the investigation, the suspect, who was the driver of the vehicle, was instructed to exit the vehicle. Upon doing so, the suspect ignored commands and was detained by an additional responding officer while the initial officers continued their investigation. While detained, the suspect struck an officer.” [ACPD]
Falls Church Budget Worries — “Burdened by preliminary projections of a revenue gap for the coming fiscal year of between $2.7 and $5.4 million due to wider conditions impacting its local economy, the Falls Church City Council voted Monday to adopt a “guidance” document for upcoming budget deliberations filled with cautionary language.” [FCNP]
It’s Friday — Expect partly sunny skies and a high near 38 degrees with a light west wind of 3 to 6 mph. As night falls, the sky will turn mostly cloudy with the temperature dropping to a low of around 28 degrees. The wind will remain calm throughout the night. [NWS]
Good Thursday evening, Arlington. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.
The following articles were published earlier today — Dec 11, 2025.
Here is what’s going on Friday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Expect partly sunny skies and a high near 38 degrees with a light west wind of 3 to 6 mph. As night falls, the sky will turn mostly cloudy with the temperature dropping to a low of around 28 degrees. The wind will remain calm throughout the night. See more from Weather.gov.
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
– Maya Angelou
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
Thanks for reading! If you have something to say about an issue of local note not covered today, feel free to post it as a letter to the editor on our new forum.
Live standup comedy in Arlington on Friday July 31 starring Jim Bryan, Kim Villamera, and Greg Billet.
Friday, July 31, 2026
Planned program changes at the new home for the Arlington Career Center are prompting anger at a parent group supporting Arlington Tech.
Concerns are being raised that a shift in proposed programming at the forthcoming Grace Hopper Center, detailed by Superintendent Francisco Durán and staff to School Board members during a Nov. 18 work session, could dilute the specialty program and the opportunities it provides to students.
A new medical spa and wellness studio are coming to Ballston, taking over the location of a wine bar that closed last month.
McLean-based Evexia Med Spa plans to open a second location at 4301 Wilson Blvd — the former Grand Cru Wine Bar and Bistro space — alongside a new “recovery wellness center,” Evexia Bio Studio, Evexia Managing Partner Chirjeev Sawhney told ARLnow.
Heavy traffic and some road closures are expected around Arlington National Cemetery this weekend as volunteers lay holiday wreaths at thousands of headstones.
Following record turnout and traffic backups during Family Pass Holder Day last Sunday, the cemetery is, as usual, encouraging volunteers to take the Metro to either Rosslyn or the Pentagon on Saturday. The Arlington Cemetery Metro stop will also be open, but congestion is expected there.
County crews are working to repair a “large water main break” in Pentagon City.
The break happened this morning near the intersection of S. Hayes Street and 15th Street S., resulting in a partial road closure and some 100 units in a high-rise building to lose water pressure.
After nearly two years, a build-your-own pasta restaurant plans to open in Ballston this weekend.
Scolapasta is on track to open in the food court of Ballston Quarter (4238 Wilson Blvd) at 3 p.m. on Sunday, owner Burak Temel told ARLnow.
