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I've been in DC for almost 20 days. This is not my first visit, I visited before as a tourist for a couple days.
Here are some points I have noticed:
1- There are homeless people near Walmart and some parts of the city, I saw the homeless center. I mean this is the nation's capital. Why don't the federal government help people in need to get up and live a decent life?
2- In every country, the capital is considered the top place, as It offers many international restaurants and shopping centers. In DC, there are some but not suitable for a real capital.
3- I have been to target. Although I did not feel safe at the area there.
4- The most prestigious places are: The national mall all the way with Washington Monument and the White House and Georgetown University neighborhood ( where M street is and the embassies row).
5- DC nights are quiet. I believe many people live in Maryland and Virginia and commute to downtown DC.
I think this place deserves to be better, although many taxi drivers I spoke with while doing my communing told me DC got much better during the last 15 years.
I've been in DC for almost 20 days. This is not my first visit, I visited before as a tourist for a couple days.
Here are some points I have noticed:
1- There are homeless people near Walmart and some parts of the city, I saw the homeless center. I mean this is the nation's capital. Why don't the federal government help people in need to get up and live a decent life?
2- In every country, the capital is considered the top place, as It offers many international restaurants and shopping centers. In DC, there are some but not suitable for a real capital.
3- I have been to target. Although I did not feel safe at the area there.
4- The most prestigious places are: The national mall all the way with Washington Monument and the White House and Georgetown University neighborhood ( where M street is and the embassies row).
5- DC nights are quiet. I believe many people live in Maryland and Virginia and commute to downtown DC.
I think this place deserves to be better, although many taxi drivers I spoke with while doing my communing told me DC got much better during the last 15 years.
2- In every country, the capital is considered the top place, as It offers many international restaurants and shopping centers.
That's not true for every country.
The capitals of Canada, Brazil and Australia, for example, are not the top cities in those countries. In fact, they are way less prominent than Washington DC.
here's the real problem - you came with preconceived notions of an arrogant continental. You hold a standard to Washington, DC that Rome and definitely Naples cannot hold.
20 days and you are quite an expert.
Yes, there are homeless here. The Federal government DOES help them - through distribution of funds that allows local agencies to administer to their needs. You can't force someone off the street, though.
2- In every country, the capital is considered the top place, as It offers many international restaurants and shopping centers. In DC, there are some but not suitable for a real capital.
There's a few reasons for this (in my humble opinion ):
1) The United States is both a very young country, relatively speaking, and geographically one of the largest countries in the world. America expanded over that large area for a relatively short 200 or so years, which prevented one single city from becoming our "primate city" (although I would argue NYC comes the closest to that title). Instead, several cities now specialize in certain things - for example DC is the political capital, NYC is the financial capital, Los Angeles is our cultural capital (although NYC is no slouch in that department either), San Francisco/Silicon Valley is the technological capital etc.)
2) D.C. was built "from scratch" in 1790 specifically to be the nation's capital. This put it behind older, more established cities like NYC, Boston, and Philadelphia and I also suspect that since the federal government was the major, relatively stable industry for over 200 years it stifled the growth of other secondary industries that might have sprung up, which is why younger cities like Los Angeles and Chicago have grown larger in a shorter amount of time.
The problem with DC is that although it's the nation's capital, it's not the cultural or financial capital. In a lot of ways, New York City is more of a capital than DC is. NYC is America's prominent city, DC is not.
Hi. Some comments are pointing out about my politeness. I am not questioning your patriotism. I am trying to initiate a debate about things I've seen. I've been here for three weeks. However, before that I was a tourist here, and not surprisingly, a week is more that enough to deliver a point of view about DC as it occupies very small area geographically. I am not responsible for your misinterpretation.
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