Reply to The Pandemic Hit Cities Hard And Then There's Washington, DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I read the article and thought "meh."  Everything that it reported applies equally to other large cities.  [/quote]

Except DC is more reliant on commuters than even NYC and doesn't have a state government to fall back on. Also the council just decided to spend all of the money they got from the feds on social spending instead of things that will attract people back into the city like lowering crime.Then you have WMATA hilariously floating proposals to build new metro stations in Georgetown when ridership is at 22% of pre-pandemic levels. They need to start making cuts and quickly otherwise the ones they have to make in 2 years will be even more painful.[/quote]
DC is also sort of unique in that all of the commuters live in other states. So everyone that moves out is a zero sum loss.

But it is also interesting that for a jurisdiction so reliant on commuters, they have been very hostile to commuters the last few years so it should not be a surprise that people are taking the hint.

The reality is that the neighborhoods are doing very well, for now. Downtown on the other hand is not in good shape. The question is whether over time what happens downtown spreads into the neighborhoods.

This is probably why they are desperate to get people to live downtown to turn it into a neighborhood because the alternative is quite alarming.

Fiscal management is a whole other issue. Turning a $500m windfall surplus last year into a $200m deficit this year is not good. Encouraging WMATA to spend their COVID windfall running empty buses and trains is also not smart, when even in best of times every ride loses money. A lot of Big Brain stuff going on right now that is going to look very foolish in a few years.
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