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Our experience, as tourists, of Washington DC was partly of terror. Pre internet we had selected a hotel that looked very central to the attractions. We discovered it was in a bad area and we would have to step over sleeping bodies to get to see these attractions, which were wonderful. But I do not think my impressions were very valid and hopefully it may have few scary areas these days.
Ottawa was a city we visited on a later trip and we loved it so much we extended our stay. It was autumn, the weather was lovely, the people lovely but a few days as a tourist does not enable you to judge a city.
Then there is Canberra. Can I say it is not really anyone’s fault it is how it is. It and Darwin have the highest median income in the country because they are both cities of public servants. But Canberra was a designed city, from scratch, and designed by an American who won an award to come up with a plan. It is not anyone’s fault that in those times maybe a hundred years ago, that spaciousness was in vogue and cramped inner cites were still slums around the world. So Canberra is spread out and spacious. One lovely thing is that it is full of deciduous trees which are not natives and are not planted any more because it is not PC. But a place to admire autumn colours.
It is very dull and boring but it is apparently a good place to bring up a family. However it should be noted one of our previous PMs decided against moving his family to the official residence there and stayed in Sydney. So now it seems to be optional for country’s leader to properly live there. Our current PM has been there in isolation, with both their mothers no less. But as soon as school resumed a couple of weeks ago his wife, kids and the mothers have headed back to Sydney, leaving Scomo to enjoy the delights of Canberra in the winter while he tries to navigate the recovery from the virus. So perhaps that sums up Canberra. You live there if you have to and mostly retire to the coast.
DC was a really dumpy place until 2000 or so (and 1970-1990 was its dark age). In 2000 is when its renaissance began.
From 1970 to 2000, DC lost nearly 200,000 people (757,000 to 572,000). 2010 was the first time it registered growth since 1950!
And this decade it has gone into overdrive: +110,000 people in 9 years. It has become one of the wealthies cities in America and gentrification has swept through all central neighborhoods. At this point you have to cross the Anacostia River to get to the "ghetto" and even Anacostia is seeing rapid infill now.
All of the ghetto once south of the National Mall has been demolished. Search up Navy Yard and Wharf District for the new neighborhoods of 40,000+ that has taken its place.
Once you return, the city will feel foreign to you. It's an urban transformation unparalleled in American history except for maybe New York (which also went from zero to hero in 2 decades).
If you'd bought 10 beaten up rowhouses for $100,000 in Shaw in 1990, you could now sell them for nearly $10 million dollars now.
Even I'm getting priced out if I don't buy a home soon. Amazon's 2nd Headquarters is coming to the DC Area (Arlington/Alexandria) and the average detached home price is nearing $800k near a metro station.
I would say DC beats Ottawa for suburbs and environs. It has much nicer suburbs, and is at the southern end of the northeast megalopolis extending from Boston through NYC. It's also closer to some more impressive nature: Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains, plus, the Atlantic. Virginia has some great vineyards bordering D.C. I also wouldn't call D.C. "segregated" at all; I'm pretty sure it's plurality black.
"Segregated" is really a world that people shouldn't throw around lightly.
DC is definitely segregated by wealth, though I agree that racial segregation isn't accurate.
I think DC is the wealthiest Black city in America and Prince George's County nearby has the largest middle class Black population in the country.
If you're a Black Federal Government employee, you can make six figures easily by your late 20s/early 30s. And tens of thousands do. They just tend to live in the better neighborhoods.
Basically, if you're a millionaire of any race, you'll live in Capitol Hill, Dupont Circle, Forest Hills, Georgetown, Logan Circle, Palisades, Rosemont.
If you're middle class of any race, you'll live in the suburbs or the Shaw, Columbia Heights, Navy Yard, Noma, Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Rosslyn, Ballston, Bluemont, Pentagon City areas.
And the poor regardless of race live across the Anacostia or in parts of Prince George's County.
Northern Virginia is uniformly upper middle class and Prince William County (500,000 people) is one of the most diverse counties in America: 42% White, 24% Latino, 22% Black, 10% Asian, 5% Mixed.
Loudoun County (420,000 people) is the wealthiest county in America ($120k average household income): 55% White, 20% Asian, 14% Latino, 8% Black, 4% Mixed.
DC's suburbs are actually well known for diversity. If you want good ethnic food in DC, you come to the upper middle class Northern Virginia suburbs.
Stephen Harper lives in Calgary now. Paul Martin and Brian Mulroney live in Montreal.
In the U.S. there's also Camp David which serves as the Presidential Retreat. No President has ever turned down living in the White House, but some take retreats more than others.
Each President also usually has a Summer/Winter White House that gets the same security perimeter and Secret Service monitoring as the White House.
Trump's Summer White House is in Bedminster, New Jersey. His Winter White House is of course Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
Obama's Summer White House was in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His Winter White House was Plantation Estate in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Bush used Camp David as his Summer White House and his Crawford, Texas, ranch as Winter.
As I'm sure you know, Roosevelt had two Summer White Houses, Hyde Park, NY and Campobello Island in New Brunswick. Warm Springs, Georgia was his Winter White House (also where he died in 1945).
Truman's Winter White House in Key West, Florida, is my favorite.
DC was a really dumpy place until 2000 or so (and 1970-1990 was its dark age). In 2000 is when its renaissance began.
From 1970 to 2000, DC lost nearly 200,000 people (757,000 to 572,000). 2010 was the first time it registered growth since 1950!
And this decade it has gone into overdrive: +110,000 people in 9 years. It has become one of the wealthies cities in America and gentrification has swept through all central neighborhoods. At this point you have to cross the Anacostia River to get to the "ghetto" and even Anacostia is seeing rapid infill now.
All of the ghetto once south of the National Mall has been demolished. Search up Navy Yard and Wharf District for the new neighborhoods of 40,000+ that has taken its place.
Once you return, the city will feel foreign to you. It's an urban transformation unparalleled in American history except for maybe New York (which also went from zero to hero in 2 decades).
If you'd bought 10 beaten up rowhouses for $100,000 in Shaw in 1990, you could now sell them for nearly $10 million dollars now.
Even I'm getting priced out if I don't buy a home soon. Amazon's 2nd Headquarters is coming to the DC Area (Arlington/Alexandria) and the average detached home price is nearing $800k near a metro station.
That was the trend with a few big American cities in the 70s - early 90s, and then the clean-ups happened and crime rates dropped. Even New York City had serious quality of life issues in the 70s.
I don't think this is necessarily worse than, for example, the extreme increase in terrorism risk and violent crime that you saw in certain UK cities like Manchester and Belfast during the Troubles, but the 70s and 80s were definitely rough for a number of major metropolitan areas in the US. I don't know if Canada or Australia have experienced those kinds of ups and downs in any of their major cities.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Washington D.C. is an Alpha- world city on par with Rome, Bogota, Barcelona, and Manila in global stature. Ottawa is a Gamma- city along the lines of Curitiba Brazil, Sacramento, CA and Nashville, TN. Canberra is not even on the radar.
Washington has the best museums in the US (largest grouping in the world), one of the country's best park systems, 177 embassies and consulates, world class chefs and Michelin starred restaurants, 3 major commercial airports, a world class public transit system 2nd to NYC in the US, and is one of the top 10 international tourist destinations in US/Canada ahead of places like Chicago, Toronto, and Boston. DC has traffic that rivals Los Angeles, yet has the 2nd busiest subway rail in the US. It' screams big sprawling metropolis. This really isn't a fair match up. I find it interesting how people always try to compare those other planned capitals to DC.
Last edited by the resident09; 05-25-2020 at 07:17 PM..
All of the big cities of the NE US and often into the Midwest tend to have nicer suburbs than the major Canadian cities across the border.
Those American suburbs tend to be overgrown small towns so they still have quite a bit of character and charm. You have a teeny bit of that in the suburbs of Canadian cities but not nearly as much.
Most of the "suburbs" around Canadian cities tend to be subdivisions planted in the middle of what used to be farmers' fields. It's actually more reminiscent of suburbia in the US Sunbelt, which kinda makes sense because a lot of the suburban growth around Canadian cities and US Sunbelt cities occurred around the same time.
I live in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, on the border with Hinsdale. Hinsdale is interesting in that it's this fairly tiny suburb with a downtown full of boutiques, restaurants and cafes, flower shops, art galleries and also mixed independent/commercial businesses and restaurants (Starbucks, Einstein's Bagel's, etc...). It also has it's own historical/architectural preservation society. You have tons of other suburban downtowns like that, such as LaGrange, Elmhurst, Westmont, Downer's Grove, Naperville, Wheaton, Glen Ellyn, and further out, places like Geneva, Batavia, St. Charles....
It seemed that much more of Canada's suburban areas were subdivisions of the bedroom community type - 95-100% residential. Of course, the US also has plenty of bedroom communities and areas like this, especially in the sun-belt region, but even there, there's a strong main street tradition as far as town development goes that Canada doesn't seem to have as much of. There are some commuter suburbs, particularly in eastern Canada, that fit the bill, and have their own livelier downtowns and main streets, but I'd agree that they don't seem to be as common as they do in the US.
I think this is just because Canada is overall much less thoroughly populated than the US overall. Most live in the direct orbit of 8 or so large cities, and so outlying suburban downtowns and shopping streets just aren't as common. Australia seemed to be similar to Canada in that sense, maybe even more so.
Last edited by geriatricfairy; 05-25-2020 at 07:16 PM..
In the U.S. there's also Camp David which serves as the Presidential Retreat. No President has ever turned down living in the White House, but some take retreats more than others.
Each President also usually has a Summer/Winter White House that gets the same security perimeter and Secret Service monitoring as the White House.
Trump's Summer White House is in Bedminster, New Jersey. His Winter White House is of course Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
Obama's Summer White House was in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His Winter White House was Plantation Estate in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Bush used Camp David as his Summer White House and his Crawford, Texas, ranch as Winter.
As I'm sure you know, Roosevelt had two Summer White Houses, Hyde Park, NY and Campobello Island in New Brunswick. Warm Springs, Georgia was his Winter White House (also where he died in 1945).
Truman's Winter White House in Key West, Florida, is my favorite.
LOL, there was a "winter white house" in Canada? Who allowed that?
LOL, there was a "winter white house" in Canada? Who allowed that?
No, Canada was one of his summer white houses. The winter one was in Georgia: Roosevelt had two Summer White Houses, Hyde Park, NY and Campobello Island in New Brunswick. Warm Springs, Georgia was his Winter White House.
Admittedly, the Canadian one is literally across a creek from Maine. It's probably warm by Canada standards
I think it would be nice to visit Ottawa. That is not a city that Americans typically go to when visiting Canada.
Canberra is so off the radar that I never heard of it until about a decade ago.
We found Ottawa really interesting. Highly recommend a visit.
Canberra was created to be the capital of Australia, which only federated in 1901. The big cities, as now, were Sydney and Melbourne and so it was decided that a capital would be created between the two. It is the only major inland city in the country and it is only about three hours drive from Sydney. A lot of people from Sydney will drive down for the day or the weekend to see some of the displays at the museums and art galleries. There are a lot of students and the food is good and varied. But a friend was living there when she was in her twenties and without fail, she drove home to Sydney every weekend as she found the place so boring. As I said earlier it does have some nice trees!
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