Mark David Richards

Columns
by Mark David Richards

• The Role of Presidents in Local DC History: District Needs a Champion
  in the White House, February 16, 2009
• The First Five Councils: A List of All the Officers of the Corporation
  and the First Municipal Budget of Washington City in the District of
  Columbia, January 2003
• DC’s Eternal Return: Efforts to Pass Constitutional Amendments to
  Expand Political Rights for Washington, DC,
  June 2002
• DC Equality Amendment, written
  with Timothy Cooper and Charles Wesley Harris, draft, June 4, 2002
• Response to Questions about the DC
  Equality Amendment, written with Timothy Cooper and Charles Wesley
  Harris, draft, June 1, 2002
• District of Columbia Service in World War One
  and the DC War Memorial, May 26, 2002
• Fragmented Before a Great Storm: the
  retrocession of Alexandria and Arlington County to Virginia, May 9,
  2002
• Citizens’ Guide to the Congressional
  Appropriations Process for the District of Columbia, Revised
  edition, February 2002 (original date September 7,
  2001)
• Touring Hidden Washington: Living in the Shadow
  of Congress, June 2001
• Ten Myths about the District of Columbia,
  June 2001
• Ten Things You Can Do to Help Bring Democracy
  to DC, June 2001
• District of Columbia Neighborhoods, June
  2001
• The Flag of the District of Columbia, June
  2001
• Voting Rights for District of Columbia
  Citizens, June 20, 2001
• U.S. Public Opinion on Political
  Equality for Citizens of the District of Columbia, April 12, 2000
• Comparison of
  Approaches that Congress and/or States Could Take to Grant Washington,
  D.C., Citizens Greater or Equal Political Rights, February 2001
• Evaluation of 26 Tourist Guidebooks,
  by Mark David Richards and Cherith Richards
• Timeline of Public School Governance in
  the District of Columbia
• Internet Resources on School Governance
  Issues
• A Brief 20th Century Polling History of
  the Fight for Home Rule in Washington, District of Columbia, August 2000

Mark Richards is a sociologist who has lived in a variety of District neighborhoods
(Mt. Pleasant, Columbia Heights, Kalorama, Georgetown, Dupont Circle) for 15 years.  He currently lives in Dupont East near the
“17^th Street Strip,” and works as senior associate at Bisconti
Research, Inc., an opinion research firm, in Woodley Park. 
Richards was born in Pennsylvania, and has lived in North Carolina; Kentucky; Paris
and Strasbourg, France; Bouaké, Ivory Coast; and Tombouctou and Diré, Mali.   He speaks French.  Richards authored “Making Up Our Mind in a Democratic Age:  A Review of the Social Science Literature on Land
Use Decision Making,” (June 1994);
“Searching for Environmental Justice in a Democratic Age:  Review of the Discourse on Environmental
Inequality,” (July 1996); “Case Study
of Neighborhood Identity: Washington, D.C.’s Dupont East Neighborhood” (April
1997); “How a Modern Electricity Company Went
to the Roots of Democracy to Build Public Trust” (September 1997); and “Struggle for Democracy: A Local Sociopolitical History
of Washington, D.C.” (1998).  He also developed a series of fact sheets on
DC, and is writing “Hope and Delusion in the Nation’s Capital: Struggle for
Democracy in the District of Columbia,” his doctoral thesis for The Union
Institute, which he is doing for fun.