Ask most Washingtonians what they believe is the most important public policy issue facing the city — the one that will affect the nation’s capital for decades — and they will answer: education.

They will tell you Mayor Adrian Fenty has staked his political future on making the public schools teach rather than repel students. They will talk about the $2.3 billion the city will devote to refurbishing its aging school buildings. They will tell you how Chancellor Michelle Rhee is closing schools and replacing principals.

They would be right — but they would be wrong.

All of the above is true. Fenty is betting he can improve the schools. But I would say they are wrong in thinking that saving public schools will change our city the most.

This story continues below
Advertisement

It’s redevelopment, stupid.

The construction crane has returned as the city’s official bird, and if half the projects on the books get built, cranes will hover over the city for the next decade or more.

Here’s what you will see from a chopper’s-eye view of Washington, D.C.

- At the core of the Golden Triangle, a new office building will rise at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and K Street; a half dozen other downtown buildings are getting face-lifts.

- Along the Anacostia River, from South Capital Street bridge and the new Nationals Park all the way past the Navy Yard, new offices and condominiums are adding floors by the day.

- The new Target in Columbia Heights is setting off redevelopment of 14th Street north and south.

- In Shaw, Radio One is building a new office building on Seventh Street, south of Howard University. More offices and apartments are in the works.

-The McMillan Reservoir, at North Capital and Michigan Avenue, is about to become a small village of medical research facilities.

- Public housing projects at Barry Farms in Anacostia and Park Morton on Georgia Avenue are about to be torn down and redeveloped.

Let’s add the offices being planned over Interstate 395 at New York Avenue and the proposed development of another small city at Poplar Point, and what you have is more than a doubling of the size of the city’s commercial real estate.

Think about that: In a decade, the city’s office space will be twice the size it is today. And the residential space will grow as well.

“The history books about our city will have to devote a whole chapter to what is done over the next three years here,” says Kwame Brown, chairman of the council’s Economic Development Committee. “We have an opportunity to guide that discussion.”

We know who’s guiding the schools. We can finger Michelle Rhee. But who’s responsible for making sure that development is in scale, that residents are not tossed out by “urban removal,” that libraries don’t become law firms.

Fenty, of course. He’s the Development Mayor as much as the Education Mayor. And Kwame Brown, as the city council’s oversight chief.

Can they work together? Stay tuned for a column next week on how they can cooperate — or collide.