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Please also clarify why people choosing to live and raise families (yes, there are many doing it) in our nation's capital -after decades of exodus - is inherently bad.
The original post was not about families settling down in DC. The Washington Post article had this Page A1 headline about DC attracting a large number of 20-somethings. These people are predominately single and they are just starting their careers or finishing graduate level education. No mention of families.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluefly
Also, with this surge of population has come significantly more music, theater, and cultural venues. There need to be non-lawyers and non-lobbyists to run and perform in those venues, so please clarify your claim that DC is fundamentally no different than it was in the 80s.
Simple answer. Washington, DC has always attracted young people fresh out of college. The Washington Post reporters are making an observation that somehow today's 20-somethings (born in the 1980s) are building a MORE HIP and MORE FUN District of Columbia.
The reporter from the City Paper and I share the same viewpoint: that today's young professionals are NO different than the young professionals that came here in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Most 20-somethings work hard at their jobs and blow off steam by hitting a bar or club once in a while. This kind of behavior has been going on for decades. I witnessed and participated in this work/party cycle in the 1990s when I was in my 20s. This is a news story about nothing.
Moving to another subject.
I agree with some posters that the young professional class is less transient than previous generations. Professionals are getting married and buying property in The District.
Why are late 20-something and early 30-something professionals staying in The District?
1. Lifestyle. Close proximity to shops, restaurants, public transportation, green space and ethnic, racial and sexual diversity.
2. The perception that gentrification has rid The District of the criminal element and blighted neighborhoods. Basically, poor black people have disappeared and so it's safe to jump into the water.
3. The most critical reason for less outbound migration: Where else are young professionals going to find interesting jobs at a super salary? Think about it. The 2008 recession has wiped out industry and white-collar jobs in almost every major metropolitan market except for one: Washington, DC. Good-paying, intellectually-challenging and feel-good rewarding jobs are plentiful here. You can't say that about other major cities in the US.
Many smart college grads are flocking to DC because the job markets in large cities like Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, and New York City do not offer enough lucrative jobs.
It all boils down to the Federal Government as a steady jobs generator for college-educated professionals. Jobs in public management, lobbying and legal, public relations, journalism, IT engineering and programming, scientific research, and medical research are ALL tied to federal government spending. If you are a college grad with crushing student loan debt and you are looking to build an impressive resume, the DC market is the sure-thing.
The original post was not about families settling down in DC. The Washington Post article had this Page A1 headline about DC attracting a large number of 20-somethings. These people are predominately single and they are just starting their careers or finishing graduate level education. No mention of families.
Simple answer. Washington, DC has always attracted young people fresh out of college. The Washington Post reporters are making an observation that somehow today's 20-somethings (born in the 1980s) are building a MORE HIP and MORE FUN District of Columbia.
The reporter from the City Paper and I share the same viewpoint: that today's young professionals are NO different than the young professionals that came here in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Most 20-somethings work hard at their jobs and blow off steam by hitting a bar or club once in a while. This kind of behavior has been going on for decades. I witnessed and participated in this work/party cycle in the 1990s when I was in my 20s. This is a news story about nothing.
Moving to another subject.
I agree with some posters that the young professional class is less transient than previous generations. Professionals are getting married and buying property in The District.
Why are late 20-something and early 30-something professionals staying in The District?
1. Lifestyle. Close proximity to shops, restaurants, public transportation, green space and ethnic, racial and sexual diversity.
2. The perception that gentrification has rid The District of the criminal element and blighted neighborhoods. Basically, poor black people have disappeared and so it's safe to jump into the water.
3. The most critical reason for less outbound migration: Where else are young professionals going to find interesting jobs at a super salary? Think about it. The 2008 recession has wiped out industry and white-collar jobs in almost every major metropolitan market except for one: Washington, DC. Good-paying, intellectually-challenging and feel-good rewarding jobs are plentiful here. You can't say that about other major cities in the US.
Many smart college grads are flocking to DC because the job markets in large cities like Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, and New York City do not offer enough lucrative jobs.
It all boils down to the Federal Government as a steady jobs generator for college-educated professionals. Jobs in public management, lobbying and legal, public relations, journalism, IT engineering and programming, scientific research, and medical research are ALL tied to federal government spending. If you are a college grad with crushing student loan debt and you are looking to build an impressive resume, the DC market is the sure-thing.
I was responding to the marriage aspect because it's already proving true that when this generation settles many stay in DC.
I also don't understand why you see any of that as negative. The reason major cities exist is because they provide jobs and people are attracted to high quality of life. DC's overcome many of its problems and created that. A lot of these people, if you got to know any, may initially come for the job but stay for other reasons.
Unless you're WASHINGTON BULLET and love seedy joints full of drugs and stds, anyone would struggle to make a solid argiument that DC isn't more fun now than in the 80s. Most of today's nightlife districts didn't even exist back then.
The "reporter" was making a silly op-ed joke. Not exactly hard-hitting journalism. This is really just about classism and holding one class and/or race to a different standard than others. We keep explaining the facts of how cities work to you, but you keep ignoring us and posting these generic classist screeds.
exactly what I'm trying to figure out. How do people who come here for good jobs make the city a more boring place?
It doesn't in and of itself. Honestly, generalized complaints about young people coming here for jobs sounds a lot like a standard Courtland Milloy bitchfest.
My issue is this: back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, when crime spiralled out of control throughout the District, the crack epidemic hit the city, the city government was inept, and investment in any neighborhoods not in upper NW was tremendously lacking, the city was repeatedly lambasted for its woeful state. Many who had the means to do so fled the city for the suburbs, where many of these problems were not nearly so pervasive. Those that remained in the city complained about their seeming invisibility: city and regional leaders ignored them, their neighborhoods lacked basic amenities while crime soared, and so on. Even today, the people of wards 7 and 8 cited a feeling of being ignored by the Fenty administration and the city's resurgence as a prime reason for why they voted for Gray. They want the crime problem tackled, they want jobs, they want more and better social services, they want better schools, libraries and playgrounds, they want grocery stores, restaurants and services in their neighborhoods.
Fine--those are all laudable wishes. Yet at the same time, there are those who decry those very changes that have occured throughout other neighborhoods in the city and made those neighborhoods a more desirable place to live because--shockingly--desirable neighborhoods tend to attract more people. And, those same individuals seem to consistently ignore that the ability to build better schools, hire, train and equip a better police force, lure commercial development, and build better parks and libraries relies upon a thriving and growing tax base to fund those initiatives. Marion Barry likes to villify those (particularly those living in NW) whom he believes ignore the pleas for improvement of the standard of living of the residents of his ward, yet it is the District's ability to attract more of "those people" that facilitates those types of changes. We don't want a bunch of myopic little twits in our city, but we're more than happy to take your tax dollars to build a new rec center, thank you.
When I hear or read people pining for the good old days of DC, before the luxury condos and tapas restaurants and bike lanes and cupcake shops, I wonder just what it is that is being yearned for. You can't just take DC back to the time when it was 70% black, Commander Salamander was edgy and Logan Circle rowhouses were affordable--you also have to take an astronomical violent crime rate, commercial corridors of vacant buildings, a drug epidemic, and a city that was hemmorahging residents to the suburbs. Maybe some people are fine with that, but I'd wager that those that are would be in quite the minority.
When I hear or read people pining for the good old days of DC, before the luxury condos and tapas restaurants and bike lanes and cupcake shops, I wonder just what it is that is being yearned for. You can't just take DC back to the time when it was 70% black, Commander Salamander was edgy and Logan Circle rowhouses were affordable--you also have to take an astronomical violent crime rate, commercial corridors of vacant buildings, a drug epidemic, and a city that was hemmorahging residents to the suburbs. Maybe some people are fine with that, but I'd wager that those that are would be in quite the minority.
Very good point. A lot of people get nostalgic for the good ol' days but often forget that there was a lot of bad that came with the good ol' days.
[quote=14thandYou;19043068]It doesn't in and of itself. Honestly, generalized complaints about young people coming here for jobs sounds a lot like a standard Courtland Milloy bitchfest.
Oh man I cant stand Courtland Milloy. I am glad people with his mindset and opinion are getting a smaller and smaller voice in this increasingly diverse and cultured city.
It doesn't in and of itself. Honestly, generalized complaints about young people coming here for jobs sounds a lot like a standard Courtland Milloy bitchfest.
My issue is this: back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, when crime spiralled out of control throughout the District, the crack epidemic hit the city, the city government was inept, and investment in any neighborhoods not in upper NW was tremendously lacking, the city was repeatedly lambasted for its woeful state. Many who had the means to do so fled the city for the suburbs, where many of these problems were not nearly so pervasive. Those that remained in the city complained about their seeming invisibility: city and regional leaders ignored them, their neighborhoods lacked basic amenities while crime soared, and so on. Even today, the people of wards 7 and 8 cited a feeling of being ignored by the Fenty administration and the city's resurgence as a prime reason for why they voted for Gray. They want the crime problem tackled, they want jobs, they want more and better social services, they want better schools, libraries and playgrounds, they want grocery stores, restaurants and services in their neighborhoods.
Fine--those are all laudable wishes. Yet at the same time, there are those who decry those very changes that have occured throughout other neighborhoods in the city and made those neighborhoods a more desirable place to live because--shockingly--desirable neighborhoods tend to attract more people. And, those same individuals seem to consistently ignore that the ability to build better schools, hire, train and equip a better police force, lure commercial development, and build better parks and libraries relies upon a thriving and growing tax base to fund those initiatives. Marion Barry likes to villify those (particularly those living in NW) whom he believes ignore the pleas for improvement of the standard of living of the residents of his ward, yet it is the District's ability to attract more of "those people" that facilitates those types of changes. We don't want a bunch of myopic little twits in our city, but we're more than happy to take your tax dollars to build a new rec center, thank you.
When I hear or read people pining for the good old days of DC, before the luxury condos and tapas restaurants and bike lanes and cupcake shops, I wonder just what it is that is being yearned for. You can't just take DC back to the time when it was 70% black, Commander Salamander was edgy and Logan Circle rowhouses were affordable--you also have to take an astronomical violent crime rate, commercial corridors of vacant buildings, a drug epidemic, and a city that was hemmorahging residents to the suburbs. Maybe some people are fine with that, but I'd wager that those that are would be in quite the minority.
Might be the most well written/insightful thing I have read about D.C all month
My dad and stepmom live in DC and have two kids. They're both only 1 and a half years old. I believe that by the time they're middle school age, they'll be moving to MoCo or Arlington or Alexandria, either that or enrolling them in private school.
That's not surprising; the Post article cited directly from Census data:
"The census shows that the number of children younger than 5 [in DC] remained stable over the decade, but the number of children ages 5 to 14 fell 20 percent, from 65,000 to 51,000."
The fact that there are some yuppies, buppies and guppies with big strollers taking up sidewalk space in a few parts of Logan and Ledroit Park and getting all giddy about their good fortune in the DCPS elementary school lottery or a few new charters is not inconsistent with the fact that, as reported, families with school-age children appear to be continuing to exit the District.
My sense is that may not matter to some posters on this forum so long as the families that leave are primarily AA and there's a new place to shoot pool on H Street.
The larger point of the article was that DC has become an increasingly attractive "urban dormitory" for the post-college crowd, as well as a nice place for empty-nesters. Maybe that's good enough for some, and by most measures the city is certainly nicer than it was during the worst of the Marion Barry days, but cities that successfully attract and retain families and a wider range of age groups (for example, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, Montreal and Toronto) consistently seem to score higher than DC in national and international surveys in terms of overall livability.
I agree JEB. It would be nice to have some more neighborhoods that are not only walkable/livable but also more quiet. I love having a lot of things nearby in Adams Morgan, I don't love that it's always so loud/active on weekends.
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