Musings after a trip to DC

[PeeJayEss]

I'd rather have a beer with a laid back, humble and curious to learn, principled surfer dude from Jax Beach anyday.

amen

[Captain Zissou]

On-street Parking: There are 2-hour meters that run until 10:30 pm. Some streets now have multispace parking meters. So, instead of a having a meter at each space, there is one meter for several spaces. These green meters have a "P" on the side. The driver can pay with cash or credit card, then print a small receipt to place on the dashboard indicating how long they are allowed to park there.

http://living-in-washingtondc.com/livinginchinatown-washingtondc.php

This explains a lot!! I saw a number of those poles with the P on them.  I thought they were signage for a garage.  Thanks for clearing that up.  I used the metro, so I never bothered to actually see what those poles were.

[Captain Zissou]

I'd rather have a beer with a laid back, humble and curious to learn, principled surfer dude from Jax Beach anyday.

amen

You're quite the linguist Gtiger.  That's quite the string of euphemisms describing our beach populous.  PJ, come on.... 

[danem]

Last, the heralded "young professionals". I have been out and about a pretty good bit in DC, and it seems to be a magnet for all of the kids I didn't like in college. They take themselves way too seriously, think they are the smartest people in the room, and tend to be brown nosers. I'd rather have a beer with a laid back, humble and curious to learn, principled surfer dude from Jax Beach anyday.

This is the impression I had when I visited. DC is a different culture from here, and that culture is one reason why I wasn't inclined to go live there. That, and the fact that if you don't want that 3 hour a day commute time and you want to live close to transit, you get to spend $1200 a month to live in a closet.

[Traveller]

DC definitely had its positives, career and social opportunities being the big ones.  Being the nation's capital is obviously going to provide aspects (monmuents, museums, a "vibe") that would be difficult to recreate elsewhere.  I'm not trying to start a political thread here, but the explosive growth of the federal government over the past 30 years has obviously had an effect on the city and surrounding area.

My biggest complaints about DC were cost and traffic.  A starter home in a safe neighborhood in the District or a close-in suburb makes Avondale look cheap by comparison.  Unless you have two spouses making six figures each, you will likely have to look well outside the beltway, which brings me to my second complaint...

I sometimes say the best thing about Jacksonville is that rush hour is actually an hour.  In DC, the morning rush starts around 5:00 AM and ends around 10:00.  The afternoon rush starts at 3:00 and doesn't end till after 8:00.  When I first moved to DC, I could take Metro to Farragut West, although sometimes three trains would go by before one had room to squeeze me in.  Unfortunately, my job got transfered to Tysons, and the reverse commute was worse than the normal one due to the lack of carpool restrictions.  An 11 mile drive would often take more than an hour.

Metrorail is certainly nice, and I wish we had something comparable here.  But keep this in mind: the proposed Silver Line extension from East Falls Church to Dulles is now projected to cost almost $7 billion, almost three times as much as the proposed Tampa/Orlando HSR.  And that's after doing away with the more costly underground option through Tysons.

[copperfiend]

Copperfiend,  In my opinion, there is a difference between being young and having a job, and being a young professional. If someone has kids, but works 8-7 and then is out most nights until about 11, they would fit my description of a young professional, but I'd feel bad for their kids. 

I am not a parent, so I can't say for sure, but I imagine there are certain things (social life, freedom to do things on a whim, independence) that have to take a back seat once you have kids.

From your statement, it sounds like what you would consider "young professional" in Jacksonville would be considered "working class" in an area like DC. Is this correct?

[finehoe]

An interesting aspect of Washington is that there isn't much of a (white) working class there.  That's not to say that there are no working class-level jobs there, but that most of these type jobs tend to filled by immigrants or people from Baltimore or West Virginia.  Even the waiters and sales clerks tend to be college-educated and often have other 9-5 jobs and are working to make extra money because many lower-level white-collar jobs don't pay enough to live on.

[mtraininjax]

I think I saw on CBS Sunday morning where DC had the most jobs over the last 2 years. I'll search for that and report back, but that would be a shock to see DC, the federal government, having grown more than the other states over the last couple of years. Quite the poster-child for recovery.

Anyone want to bet which way the jobs will be flowing in Tallahassee?

[danem]

An interesting aspect of Washington is that there isn't much of a (white) working class there.  That's not to say that there are no working class-level jobs there, but that most of these type jobs tend to filled by immigrants or people from Baltimore or West Virginia.  Even the waiters and sales clerks tend to be college-educated and often have other 9-5 jobs and are working to make extra money because many lower-level white-collar jobs don't pay enough to live on.

Had a friend up there who was grossing twice as much as me for a similiar job to mine, and yet she was complaining she was broke all the time.

[PeeJayEss]

Anyone want to bet which way the jobs will be flowing in Tallahassee?

Not at all or down the drain.

[tufsu1]

I think I saw on CBS Sunday morning where DC had the most jobs over the last 2 years. I'll search for that and report back, but that would be a shock to see DC, the federal government, having grown more than the other states over the last couple of years. Quite the poster-child for recovery.

Anyone want to bet which way the jobs will be flowing in Tallahassee?

note that most of those jobs were not in the federal government directly, but in related jobs (i.e, contractors, lobbyists, think tanks, etc.)...similarly, most state capitals fared better than other areas during the recession.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Unless you have at least two spouses making six figures each, you will likely have to look well outside the beltway

Funny, they have the same theory in Salt Lake City. 

[finehoe]

Blooming
Boom times in the capital

EVERY spring, hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to America’s capital to take in the gorgeous vistas of cherry-blossom time. Above the bloom-laden trees, this year’s tourists glimpsed a rare sight: cranes towering over downtown Washington and the nearby suburbs. Across the metropolitan area, ambitious building projects are moving forward. Bold developers are once more confident that demand will materialise. While most of America frets over a jobless recovery, the Washington economy is booming.

On nearly every measure, the capital is exceptional. At 5.9%, Washington’s unemployment rate is easily the lowest among America’s large metropolitan areas. That is down from a recession high of just 7%, well below the national peak of 10.1%. Employment in the metro area has risen by about 84,000 over the past yearâ€"roughly 6% of America’s job growth, in a region with just 2% of its population. Incomes are high and rising, and the combination of job and income growth has buoyed a property market that was battered by the housing bust. House values in most cities fell in the year to January, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of prices. But whereas an index of prices in 20 large cities dropped 3% during that time, values in Washington rose 3.6%.

To many Americans, the capital’s boom mainly reflects the relentless growth of the bureaucratic state. Washington’s economy is supported by federal government employment, which is virtually recession-proof. The federal government accounts for 2.2% of all jobs nationally, but for nearly 13% of those in the Washington area. And the capital’s primary business did not collapse during the recession as other sectors did. Federal employment in the area rose by nearly 20,000 from the beginning of the downturn to its end, and continued to rise through the summer of last year.

And yet it would be wrong to attribute Washington’s success in creating jobs entirely to the public sector. Although federal spending rose, the recession forced state governments in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia to cut back. And rising federal-government employment during the downturn was partly driven by efforts to save flailing private industry. The government added workers to oversee intervention in the financial-services and car industries, and financial-regulatory agencies have continued to add staff since. Washington has frequently grown stronger in the wake of economic calamity, often because of public demand for more market oversight.

Well away from federal government, Washington also has other advantages. Its suburbs support a rich array of high-tech and bioscience enterprises, many of which held up well during the downturn. The city’s labour pool tends to be highly-skilled, and the impact of the recession was mostly felt by the lower-skilled. Based solely on the education levels of its adult population, the unemployment rate for the Washington area ought to be about 7%â€"well below the national average, and not far off its actual figure.

Republican budget-cutting may now take a toll. Washington’s market for office space may cool as the federal government pares back its demand for space, and local retailers are grumpy about lost cost-of-living adjustments for federal workers. But the latest budget deal largely spared the region’s economy. The federal government will continue to chip in for the city’s rail transit system; but as part of the deal the District can no longer use its own money to pay for abortions. This will hurt the city’s poorer residents, some of whom live in neighbourhoods with unemployment rates close to 25%.

http://www.economist.com/node/18561085