The Pandemic Hit Cities Hard And Then There's Washington, DC
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Anonymous
Not saying I don't care at all. Just saying I don't care about this particular self-entitled poster who thinks her priorities should take precedence over actual residents or else she won't go to Potbelly's. Her chief complaints are that DC cares about bike lanes and parking for city residents. I have a hunch that whatever soulless suburb she lives in cares about those things for local residents, too. We don't even have the virus behind us yet, and folks are acting like DC is already permanently dead just because some article lamenting Tucker Carlson's move to Florida says things here are gonna be tough. I'm sure they will be for a while, but we will adjust and it will all work out. |
Anonymous
You sound like the guy defending the motorbikes as a "cultural phenomenon" and trying to show how hip you are by living in a gritty city. 
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Anonymous
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I've read this entire thread, and what leaps off the screen to me is this: None of you actually lives downtown.
Well, I do -- and I have since Sharon Pratt Kelly was the mayor while Marion Barry was "on vacation." And when I mean, "downtown," I mean, walk out the back entrance of my apartment building, take two big steps to the corner, and with a really good throw, get a tennis ball to land, bounce, bounce, bounce, and come to a stop in the newly-reopened Franklin Park. So, with that, stop with all the downtown is a ghost town nonsense. It's not. Last spring, that was a ghost town. There's pedestrian and vehicular traffic again. I can't just stroll across Connecticut Avenue anymore without looking. (Because I walk to work downtown. Yes, I go to the office. Regularly. Never stopped, actually.) I could do that through last September. No more. Yes, bars have closed, but the buffet that caters to the business lunchtime crowd is open. (I went today. Yes, I know, OMG!!!! Buffets during COVID. Yeah, well, I went on the Metro, too. And I'm going to a bar tonight.) Even the hot dog vendor is back. In terms of activity, I would say things are about 60% of what they were downtown. Not dead, but certainly not what it used to be. As for the rental market, my apartment building is fairly nice by Washington standards. We have a pool, a gym, a parking garage, and bugs every flippin' summer. This place cleared out late spring last year. Easily forty percent vacant at its peak. All the kids went home, either because of school or because they could telework and live more cheaply back home. And it wasn't just my building. Up and down the street, buildings were offering crazy promotions to entice new tenants. I should know: I moved to another apartment within my building and got months of free rent and parking and below-market rent. Today, the kids have returned, but not all of them. The childless married folks, they stayed. The childless singletons, they're mostly back home. Maybe, for good. Yes, restaurants are open and there's stuff to do, but winter is a-coming. Who wants to huddle outside with more restrictions when there aren't any back in Ohio? Who wants to wear a mask inside all the damn time? Don't have to do that in Virginia . . . . Landlords are caught in a tough spot. That housing deficit yadda yadda? That does not apply downtown. There are plenty of vacancies. Landlords desperately need tenants, but being honest here, rent payments are kinda voluntary, and everyone knows it. Evictions aren't coming out of landlord-tenant court anytime soon. (Forget that December lifting of the stay. That's totally being extended.) I'll just leave this here and let all y'all in Upper Northwest keep talking about my neighborhood. It's really entertaining. |
Anonymous
NP. PP is completely right about most people living in DC bc of work. Work was the only thing tying me to DC. Once given the option to telework 100%, I was outta DC so fast you wouldn't believe it. Many of my friends did the same. I am mid 30s married with a young toddler and used to live in Logan/Shaw. Thrilled for the opportunity to not be tethered to DC anymore. |
Anonymous
Thanks for the post. I work at 17th and H and I think this area and around Farragut Square, may be a little more heavily impacted. Before COVID it is was probably the busiest daytime area in DC. Now it’s not even 20% and that’s with the GW students that wander over here. Not a single food truck has returned and with good reason, because if you want a lunchtime table at Teaism you can choose from all of them. This time of year The Exchange would typically be packed with happy hour kickballers, but covid might have killed that whole industry. Car traffic is ridiculously light. You should see the deals on early bird parking. It will be interesting to see what happens next. |
Anonymous
Thanks for clearing that up. I didn't know that you personally are "most people." |
Anonymous
I lived in NY, East Harlem and Astoria Queens to be exact. That was when I was young and felt invincible. Yeah, I prefer DC over NYC. NYC however is a great place to visit with good eats and arts, |
Anonymous
Sigh, you're such a child, that I'll try and use short words. The District needs people to commute in and do things like shop at stores, eat at restaurants, and do all of the other basic stuff that makes a city viable. The number of restaurants, nightspots and the like that exist in DC are based around the idea that hundreds of thousands of people from outside of the District commute here every day. If those commuters, or a big chunk of them, never return, the effects on businesses and the tax base would be severe. Thankfully, there are intelligent, realistic people in DC government and business that are working on this issue. So, let the adults talk and things will hopefully work out. |
Anonymous
Because, you simpleton, your image of commuters leaving DC as soon as their workday is done is not based on reality. You have no idea what you're talking about. Commuters do things like go out to happy hours with co-workers, dinners with friends, sporting events etc. And, if their view of DC is positive, they'll come into the District on weekends. I say this as somebody who worked for a DC government development agency. DC can't impose a commuter tax, so it needs to make the District an attractive place to work, shop, and play. The District's fiscal stability is heavily tied to commuters. We've seen what happens to the District when suburban residents decide that the District is not an attractive place to spend their time and money, and it ain't pretty. If you were smart, you'd want people from outside of DC to spend as much of their time and money as possible in the District. |
Anonymous
Yes, since 2002. In a neighborhood that's pretty much immune to DC's problems. But that doesn't mean I can't see what's happening in other parts of the District. |
Anonymous
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Work is far from the only reason I live in DC. It's baffling to me that folks are like "well I don't have to work in an office anymore, so I'll go live in Frederick." Like, don't you have friends? A social life?
I love the community I have here and I would not be able to replicate it in Frederick in a million years. |
Anonymous
It’s pretty obvious from this website that most posters don’t have friends! |
Anonymous
Oh, please. How often does the average commuter living in the suburbs stay in town for happy hours and dinners or sporting events? I lived in a close-in suburb for 20+ years and worked downtown and almost never did, and I'm social. Most folks couldn't wait to get home. |
Anonymous
| The reason DC is in trouble is not because families are fleeing or because people can now work remotely. Though, that certainly will hurt. No, the reason the DC economy is in trouble is because Pre-covid on a weekly basis almost year round, tens of thousands of people traveled to DC for lobbying fly-ins. On any given week on the Hill you could have hundreds of realtors, or optometrists, or accountants, or the teamsters, or whoever in town for democracy in action. These folks packed the bars and restaurants, took Ubers, sold out entire hotels, and occasionally made bad decisions and needed criminal lawyers. That’s all gone. It’s not coming back. Certainly not at the scale it once did. Once we come off the sugar high of federal bailout money, downtown DC is in for a reckoning. The hip neighborhood bars on U Street will be fine, for a while. But we’re all going to feel it. |
Anonymous
I know it’s a generalization, but I think a lot of the people (myself included) who are moving to the exurbs now that we don’t have to be in a DC office 5 days a week have a community that is largely wrapped up in our kids. That community will be replicated anywhere we move because the kids will go to new schools, we will meet the kids parents, etc. The dramatic difference in housing prospects also can’t be underestimated. The 750k house that we are buying in the exurbs would cost 1.5 million or more here. It’s just people in completely different life phases and/or with different priorities. Some people think walkability is non-negotiable, and I could not care less about it. I couldn’t handle being crammed into a 1500 sq ft house with my 2 kids and DH any longer, some people find that absurd. To each their own. But DC will be back, the interns and new graduates will return to the city (just as I came after college) and help pump up the economy again, and when they are ready to leave the city won’t miss a beat because there will be a new group ready to replace them. If DC wants to hold on to a portion of those people as they get older and have families though, they might want to address some of the quality of life issues that a 22 year old isn’t much concerned with. |