Why Washington DC is SO Out-of-Touch

Sweet Ride. Uber D.C.'s Rachel Holt
in one of her company's digitally
dispatched luxury sedans. Some
riders use them to get groceries.
(Time magazine)

Describing the über-Washingtonian lifestyle of exotic cocktails, 25 to 30 course dinners, and luxury rides, Andrew Ferguson draws a stark contrast between the affluence of the nation's capital and the country it governs. His Time magazine article, Bubble on the Potomac, is well worth a full read (subscription required), but here are some excerpts:

[The Passenger Bar's] motto? "God save the district." The sentiment is easy to understand, for these are good times in Washington and the seven counties that surround it. Even as the nation struggles, the capital has prospered, making it a magnet for young hipsters but leaving its residents with only a tentative understanding of how the rest of the country lives.



[snip]

Other big cities, of course, have made it through the recession in one piece. But few eased through the crash as lightly as D.C., much less prospered so widely on the rebound. The local unemployment rate, at 5.5%, stands well below the national figure of 8.2%. The region's foreclosure rates have always been significantly lower than those elsewhere, and now housing prices in D.C. and across the river in the Virginia suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria are close to their precrash peaks. The Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate ... ranks the region as one of the best investments in the world, right after London and New York City. The cost of office space in Washington rivals New York prices, averaging $50 a square foot.

How's a country to make sense of a national capital whose day-to-day life is so much more upholstered than its own? Increasingly, it cannot. Recently Washington passed San Jose in Silicon Valley to become the richest metropolitan area in the U.S. Since the 1990s, says economist Stephen Fuller of George Mason University, the region has led the nation’s metropolitan areas in overall employment rate. The median household income in the metro area in 2010 was $84,523, according to calculations by Bloomberg News, nearly 70% over the national median household income of $50,046. Nine of the 15 richest counties in the country surround Washington, including Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5. Per capita income in D.C. is more than twice that in Maine. All this explains why Gallup’s Well-Being Index rates D.C. as the most satisfied large metropolitan ­area in the U.S. The pollsters were especially ­impressed with the region’s low smoking rate (15%) and the 72% who visit the dentist annually for a checkup. Washingtonians are skinnier, exercise more, eat more vegetables and are more likely to have health insurance than the average American. They’re also more optimistic — about the economy and about the future in general.

[snip]

Yet the diversity of the Washington economy is an illusion, for each of its business sectors is to some degree a creature of the region's single great industry — the federal government. ... The size of the nonmilitary, nonpostal federal workforce has stayed relatively stable since the 1960s. What has changed is not the government payroll but the number of government contractors. ... Which means government hasn't shrunk; it's just changed clothes (and pretty nice clothes they are).

[snip]

Socially and culturally, life in über-Washington can seem as insular as its economy, and the insularity has ­consequences for the rest of the country. Über-Washingtonians, for instance, are intensely concerned about the environment. ... No doubt the conscience thrives as much in Youngstown, Ohio, as it does in Washington, but you don’t see many locals there trading their minivans for Zipcars or rent-a-bikes. Fracking for natural gas is regulated from Washington, where it is viewed with suspicion; in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, it is a source of potential riches and a better life. The sight of an oil platform may lift the heart of a worker struggling on the Gulf Coast; über-Washingtonians have a different ­impression. In D.C., if in few other places, half a billion dollars lost to a solar company like Solyndra can seem to be the price of being conscientious. At the same time, life in Washington is so comfortable that it is easy for those living there to imagine that the rest of the country is doing just fine too. Aren’t restaurants in your hometown packed at 10 p.m. on a Monday? No? Really?

[snip]

How long can such a culture of complacency last, even one as heavily subsidized by a country as rich as the U.S., in the face of awesome government debt? ... The optimism of über-Washingtonians so far survives the unspoken worry about a coming age of austerity, in which government spending cuts would end the high life that Washingtonians have come to expect...