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Washington DC: Difference between revisions
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Washington is also not part of any US State. It's a special federal district. As a tragically ironic consequence of this, citizens who live in Washington have less representation in the federal government than other citizens. Up until 1961, residents could not vote for the President of the United States. Representation in the legislature is limited to one delegate in US House of Representatives, who is [[Morton's Fork|not allowed to vote]]. In fact, given that the US Congress has final say over all matters passed by the municipal government, DC's situation is similar to that of colonial America's relationship to Great Britain. Thus, the license plate slogan [http://autodogmatic.com/index.php/2006/05/25/dcplates?blog=2 "Taxation without Representation"]. The exact technical term is [[wikipedia:Suzerainty|"suzerainty"]], in that The District is under the direct control of Congress in the same way a king might hold control over a captured territory.
Why does such an ironic situation exist? It was written into the US Constitution. The Founding Fathers feared if the capital district was a part of any state or was considered a state itself, the federal government would treat that state favorably. The framers never thought that Washington would become an actual city with an indigenous population. But they overestimated the size of land needed to host a body of government, and that extra land naturally ended up being filled with people who worked in the District.
Why this has not been corrected: Aside from the fact that [[Be as Unhelpful as Possible|getting Congress to agree on anything is hard in general]], politics in the District are incredibly monolithic, leaving both of [[American Political System|the major political parties of the US]] having very different preferences for a solution. The Democratic Party, which enjoys over 90% support in DC, naturally favors statehood or something equivalent, which would add 2 Senate seats and one House seat that they would perpetually control. The Republican Party, on the other hand, prefers returning the land of the District to the jurisdiction of Maryland, which gave up the land to form the capital in the first place. This would add a single Democratic-dominated House district to Maryland's allotment, a much smaller advantage to Democrats and thus much more palatable to Republicans.
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The myth is that DC law prohibits the construction of any building taller than the Washington Monument (or Capitol building). This is only partially true. There ''is'' a law governing building height: [[wikipedia:Washington Monument#cite ref-22|the Height of Buildings Act]] restricts new building heights to no more than 20 feet (6.1 m) greater than the width of the adjacent street; existing structures are not mentioned. So the way this works out is that no new building will be taller than the Washington Monument, though there ''are'' three other buildings taller than the Capitol building (the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the Old Post Office, and the National Cathedral respectively).
Washington D.C. has been described as two cities in one. The first part consists of the famous buildings, government offices, museums, office buildings, and select housing areas, mainly populated by predominantly upper class, predominantly liberal (except for conservative industry lobbyists) white people who run the government (or up-and-coming yuppie policy wonks who imagine themselves doing so and mostly leave disappointed when they end up working for said lobbyists). Most go home to Virginia and Maryland at night. The ones who stay gravitate like magnets to the gentrified, [[Gay Paree|Parisian-style]] neighborhoods in the Northwest quadrant of the city.
The second part is housing for the mainly-black working classes that staff the government service jobs, clean the offices, and serve the food for the first half. The second city of Washington is almost entirely devoid of public services -- everyone lucky enough to have a job works downtown -- while the first is an unbroken line of office buildings, luxury apartments, shops, and campuses stretching out from downtown DC to the north and west. While the first is relatively safe, parts of the second city remain ghettos with some of the highest crime and murder rates in the nation. While most American cities have this dichotomy to some extent, DC is one of the more extreme examples.
Central Washington, known as the ''L'Enfant City'' (the part laid out by [[Egopolis|said Frenchman]] in 1790 as a planned metropolis) has seen massive urban renewal to make the areas convenient to the centre [[Space Brasilia|"look more like America"]], "as befits the heart of our democracy" -- if America had a mean income of $500,000, that is. At one point these efforts were justified by high crime rates (14th street was the [[Vice City|red light district]], two blocks from The White House, and downtown DC used to be a collection of boarded-up buildings and souvenir shops). But since the [[The Eighties|80s]] and [[The Nineties|90s]] crime epidemic [[Reality Is Unrealistic|has actually subsided]], it's merely been justified as "quality of life" ([[Blatant Lies|and not just for senators and their escorts]], either).
Indeed, the quality of life in DC is bustling: It's one of the few cities in America where it's actually pleasant to walk around on foot, although you will find little casual shopping or dining; most of the businesses are tourist, entertainment, or office-related (read: bars). These bars are patronized by aforementioned [[Brat Pack|young urban professionals]].
Georgetown especially is a haven for these [[Ivy League for Everyone|ivy-league types]]. It's also the setting for numerous movies. Just about every character on film in DC [[Friends Rent Control|lives in Georgetown]].
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Washington is infamous for its [[Long Hot Summer|Long Hot Summers]] and notorious for its plain-dress, anti-fashion sentiment. Tourists are notorious for their flamboyant yet weather-appropriate Safari attire, such as fishing caps, cargo shorts, and fanny packs. Dress appropriately. Note for tourists: If you don't want to look like a tourist, [[Berserk Button|stand to the right]] on escalators.
The museums on the Mall are all free. Good luck finding a place to eat, though; the American Indian Museum is popular. The best time to visit D.C. is in March, when the [[Cherry Blossoms]] bloom. This is the only festival the locals take seriously, and much like Mardi Gras, you have to know when and where to actually go -- the blossoms never coincide with the actual festival. When they do bloom, millions of people descend on the Mall at once in a blossom-fueled rage.<ref>Note - [[Serious Business|This actually happens.]] </ref>
=== Tourist Attractions of Washington ===
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* The Smithsonian Institution - America's largest Museum Mile. All of it is free and open year-round. For example:
** The Smithsonian Castle: America's [[Overly Narrow Superlative|most famous visitor center]]. Hidden in the basement is an actual institution of learning populated by the academics lucky enough to do research work in the various museums. There are also [[Beneath the Earth|two underground museums]] of Asian and African art most people don't know about.
** These are the Freer Gallery of Asian Art (which is connected to the Arthur M Sackler gallery) and the Museum of African Art. The latter includes art donated from the personal collection of Walt Disney.
** The Air and Space Museum: touchable piece of the moon, lot of stuff on flight and for [[Cold War]] buffs, a Pershing II and RT-21M/SS-20 side-by-side. At approximately seven million visitors a year, it is the most popular museum on the mall (and quite possibly in the world). It has a sister museum, the Stephen F Udvar-Hazy center, in Chantilly Virginia, near Dulles Airport, which contains items like the ''Enola Gay'' and the space shuttle ''Discovery''.
** The Natural History Museum: basically similar to the one in New York. Has a hall of gemstones (giant ones) and an insect zoo. Contains vast inaccessible archives popularized in shows like ''[[Bones]]'' and ''[[National Treasure]]'', full of old artifacts and butterflies on pins.
** The American History Museum: The Star-Spangled banner and other historical artifacts. [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|Not as interesting as it used to be]] when it was used for rotating displays of the Smithsonian's vast array of tchotchkes. Now it's highly polished and empty display halls, populated by visiting exhibits paid for with private funds. They still have a [[Fan Disservice|naked marble statue of George Washington]].
** The Hirschhorn, a gallery of modern art along with a very... odd... sculpture garden. The [[Flying Saucer]]-shaped building itself was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, and it's called the Hirshhorn as it was initially funded by a guy named Hirschhorn. To locals it is especially well known for hosting terrible science fiction movie screenings in the summer (seriously).
** The National Museum Of American Art, which has the sculpture of Robert Gould Shaw on which the film ''[[Glory]]'' is based. It also has the Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nation's Millenium General Assembly (see below). [[Arc Words|Fear Not]].<ref>According to the artist's [[Fictionary|untranslated journal]], it's a [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|series of tinfoil thrones]] for the [[Celestial Bureaucracy]] to rule Washington [[After the End]].</ref>
** The National Portrait Gallery, which is a gallery of, well, portraiture.
** The Postal Museum, which is a museum dedicated to the postal service (seriously, it exists).
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=== Useful Features ===
* Metrorail - DC's subway system, the second-busiest in the nation and designed as something of an antithesis to the New York City Subway, with huge domed-concrete stations, hexagonal tile floors, computer-controlled cars, and notoriously strict rules about consuming food and beverages. Designed in the late 1960s as a [[Time for Plan B|Plan B]] to redirect unused freeway funds to some form of transport (as DC residents saw that they [[Big No|really didn't want freeways]] cutting apart their backyards and neighborhoods), it was made with an eye toward luring commuters out of their cars -- a plan that, 40 years on, seems to have worked. It's starting to show its age a bit (it went online in 1976) and is nearing capacity, but still preferable to driving (especially if you're aware of how bad DC traffic is).
* D.C. has notoriously difficult traffic circles. The explanation is that this in case those [[Evil Brit|redcoats]] (or later, just [[Dirty Commies|the Reds]]) ever come back, they'll enter a traffic circle and will be unable to figure out how to leave it, thus keeping them from burning the city. [[The War of 1812|Again]]. Though the UK now has [[Hilarious in Hindsight|a lot of traffic circles]]...
* The Capital Beltway, aka Interstate 495. On its southern and eastern sections, it also contains mainline Interstate 95... which was supposed to go directly through DC on its trek from Miami to Maine, but was redirected by freeway revolts (see above). All in all, it's another reason why [[Washington DC Invasion|Invading DC is not advised.]]
** It's also useful for navigation purposes to know that the Beltway has "The Inner Loop" (the side of the Beltway which runs clockwise around DC) and "The Outer Loop" (the side of the Beltway which runs counter-clockwise around DC).
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In D.C., you are what you do for a living. Policy wonks who work on Capitol Hill are divided into "interns" and "Hill Rats" (lifers). They congregate in Georgetown (Washington's old-line, 18th-century neighborhood, featured in ''[[The Exorcist]]'') and Capitol Hill (the cheap ones live on Capitol Hill, which is basically a giant college town for Members of Congress and their underlings). Affluent activists congregate in Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan, an area "historically known" for crunchy artists and ethnic diversity. The Dupont Circle is DC's version of Greenwich Village. Adams Morgan is ten blocks of nightclubs and restaurants (Afghan, Ethiopian, etc) surrounded by barrios, converted mansions, and brownstone apartment buildings.
Many of the shops and nightclubs in Adams-Morgan are Ethiopian-owned, but most of DC's large Ethiopian community has moved into U Street in the Shaw neighborhood, D.C's historically-black nightlife corridor, named for Capt. Shaw of ''[[Glory]]'', which is rapidly being gentrified and taken over by yuppies and college students. Just twenty years ago, it was a high-crime area, and 14th street NW was considered a bright red line which affluent Washingtonians would not cross. North of Shaw is a series of ethnic communities which stretches north to the Maryland border. [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|Walter Reed Army Hospital]] is located here.
* '''Upper Northwest'''<br />West of Rock Creek park is the exclusive white province known as Upper Northwest, an area of broad boulevards, embassies, private schools, and the National Cathedral. It is also, perversely, the home of D.C.'s [[Hardcore Punk]] scene, which helped break out [[Alternative Rock]] in the late 1980s. Further into the Upper northwest, D.C. extends into Maryland in an unbroken corridor of affluence: private schools, research institutions, and centers of learning. Nearby Bethesda, Maryland is a shopping and dining destination. Chevy Chase, which sits on the border of Upper Northwest DC, as well as M Street in Georgetown, is Washington's version of [[Blue Blood|Rodeo Drive]].
* '''Anacostia'''<br />D.C. is an amalgam of people from around the United States and sits on the dividing line between the North and South, which is still very bright for some residents who refuse to cross the Potomac River except to go to a ballgame. The further south and east you go, the more it resembles a Southern town, such as [[The Big Easy|New Orleans]]. The houses are small and working class, the neighborhoods mostly black.<br /><br />South and east of Capitol Hill is the Anacostia river, hemmed in by levees and old industrial sidings. This marks the boundary with [[Wrong Side of the Tracks|the hard lands]], known to some people as "Simple City"<ref>(because the choice between life and death is very simple there)</ref>. The [[Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom|Department of Homeland Security]] has cheerfully decided to build its national HQ in a [[Abandoned Hospital|converted mental hospital]] in Simple City, just south of Anacostia's [[Dissonant Serenity|surprisingly quaint]] main drag. This part of town is also the home of D.C.'s other native music, go-go.<ref>no, not ''[[Stripperiffic|that go-go]].''</ref> It is a lo-fi cross between funk and hip-hop that is played with guitar and dozens of percussion instruments.
* '''Suburban Maryland'''<br />Going north, into Maryland, it often resembles [[Joisey|New Jersey]], and is populated by staunchly liberal Yankees, such as the college professors, [[New Age Retro Hippie|hippies]], and multi-cultural immigrant neighborhoods in and around Takoma Park, Silver Spring, and Mount Rainier, Maryland. This is where you can find all the delis, antique stores, and curry shops. Riverdale, Maryland is Little Mexico.<br /><br />The two Maryland counties that surround DC are Montgomery County to the North and West, and Prince George's County to the South and East. Montgomery County is the richest county in the State, Prince George's county not so much (but not the poorest). An old joke about the importance of Montgomery County was that "The legislature in Annapolis considers its job to pump money out of Montgomery County and into the City of Baltimore."<br /><br />There is, however, often a stark distinction between Montgomery County and Prince George's County, the two Maryland counties that border the District. Prince George's County outside of Greenbelt (a leafy, affluent suburb like much of neighboring Montgomery County) and College Park (home to the University of Maryland's main campus) resemble Southeast. However, there is much development of the National Waterfront area. <br /><br />Northeast along the high-speed tracks going towards [[New York City|New York]] is a marginally unsafe dead zone of tire salons and automobile dealerships. Everything west of the railroad tracks can be considered an extension of Upper Northwest and is just as affluent, with quaint Victorian homes. Metrorail service is also much more extensive on the Maryland side, and most of the suburbs have actual downtowns with a train station, restaurants and shops.
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