Posted on 08/06/2014 9:24:00 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
A quarter of a century ago, Washington DC had a fearsome reputation for crack abuse and rampant gun violence - it was the "murder capital" of the US. But now, once-blighted neighbourhoods close to the centre of the capital are thriving.
When Ruben Castaneda moved to the US capital in 1989 to take up a job with the Washington Post, he was struck by how easy it was to score crack.
Days after arriving in the city, he was taken to S Street Northwest by a "strawberry" - a streetwalker who offered sex in return for drugs.
"The moment she stepped out of the car, the drug dealers ran across the street and surrounded her," he recalls. "Coming from Los Angeles, I was a little taken aback by how casually all this went down."
They were in the Shaw/U Street neighbourhood, less than two miles from the White House.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Bob Hope joked that he liked visiting Washington DC because he wanted to be close to his money.
I guess the community activists lost out in their battle against “gentrification”.
it’s amazing what $7 TRILLION can do to a neighborhood...
The type of cliched writing and cliched race bias and cliched negativity in this article is why I gave up newspapers.
I think I’ve read this article countless times over the last 30 years, different cities, same article.
...at the expense of the rest of the country.
Have there been any positive consequences of restoration of legal permission for law-abiding District citizens to own and carry (not the “right” to do so; it never ceased to exist, but was suppressed) firearms?
Gentrification on the backs of the hapless taxpayers funding the FedGov bubble.
In the last few years, the Washington metropolitan area has accounted for at least half of America's richest 10 counties.
Government debt, taxes and printed money all flows through Metro DC first. If you aren't getting rich there, you must be stupid.
I’d never been to DC in my life...when I took a GS job there in 2010, and stayed for 3.5 years (leaving last year).
What I can generally say is that it reminds you of a banana republic capital. There’s generally a murder every day or two in the area....most centered around the eastside or the northside of town. Few if ever, occur in Georgetown.
The METRO system works, but it’s overloaded with incompetent workers, drivers, and managers. During my time there, there were five or six subway accidents, which usually led back to human factors. At least once a month, you had a suicide on the rail system, and if you were on that route...it meant that you got stuck for at least three hours while some crew cleared the remains.
If you walked around the rear of the White House and went one block east....you felt like you were in Detroit. You were generally still safe. If you went past the Anacosta River...day or night....you were generally unsafe. DC cops avoid the area except routine patrols.
The city council? Mostly all corrupted....it’s the only way to win, and to stay on the council. They all had requested (demanded) SUVs as personal cars (not the cheaper $30k models but the $45k types). At some point, it came out that two decades ago....someone made a city rule that only the chief of police and fire could have a SUV...while everyone else was limited to regular cars. That was a shocker, for the city council members.
Whenever it snowed....the snow removal priority went hyper, with city council members pushing and demanding their districts get priority. For years, it didn’t really matter....then came the snows of Feb 2010, and lots of heat went onto the street crews.
The Nationals stadium was put right into a fairly congested area...with crime elements being around 1000 feet away from the entry gates. Cops stayed around when games ended to ensure you could walk to the Metro station and get the heck out of the area.
Teenage punks ruled Metro stations in DC after school hours. You’d see people jumped or robbed. It was popular to just sit there at one station and watch teens place themselves to hit on a guy talking on his cellphone....grabbing the phone and making a run.
Pickpockets? They roamed Metro day and night. I watched some guy left a businessman’s wallet on the escalator (I was near the bottom and they were near the top). By the time I got to the top and could see both....the pickpocket guy was already flipping through the billfold and pulling the credit card out...tossing the rest into the garbage. He walked across the street into the Arlington Mall, and I can only imagine he had some insider working a shop and quickly let him charge a thousand on clothing to be resold later.
Americans who came into DC as tourists were actively preyed upon. As long as you stayed as part of your tour group....you were generally safe within the national mall area.
Homelessness? There’s probably over five thousand scattered around DC, at least two thousand in Arlington, and around five to ten thousand in the areas of Maryland surrounding DC. Most are mentally deranged and ought to be put into a facility....but no one will do that. The remainders? Mostly GI’s with serious alcohol problems who do various programs via the charity operations, but never get past a certain point of recovery and stability. All of the homeless programs just spend the money and never fix the issue. I used to walk by the Justice building and continually notice two particular homeless guys who’d pitch a tent behind the bushes. They would stay there for weeks until the cops stumbled upon them and forced them leave...then within a week, they’d return to the same spot.
The incredible thing that I started to notice by the end of 2012 was that government employees (the younger crowd) were buying old residences in DC, renovating them, and changing the system....block by block. It might take twenty years, but I think that eighty percent of DC will middle-class or upper-income. The Anacosta region? The forbidden zone....I don’t see it ever coming back. You’d have to put fifty cops on hourly patrol and really put folks in jail for law violations (not the pretender-justice that exists now).
When I left DC in July of 2013....I went out in style...going to Union Station and riding Amtrak out of town. I had to sit and wait two hours for the train to leave. If you wanted to see every single weird character of DC....go to Union Station. Nutcases, transexuals, hookers, dopers, etc....they all hang out there. Food and drink cost fifty percent more than normal. You might see one cop an hour....if you really spent time looking. The train left on time, which I appreciate...and I just shook my head as my car left town. I had expectations when I got there...and it was a shocker in some ways as I left...the banana republic status is absolute and correct to give the town. And no one should ever think about moving there....unless you want a career in corrupt politics or want some drug-dealing opportunities.
Al that stolen loot, they get a cut off the top
At one time it was three of the top ten...the money bomb now has snared two more as its tenicles reach farther out as the previous crooks “retire” to their country dachas. It is one reason Virginia is now gone from the conservative side of the ledger. The DC plague has infested areas beyond the reach of a 100mg bomb now.
We need to cut the federal government by about 90%.
DC is a parasite gorged on the blood of its host.
Washington, DC is like the place where the criminal gangs in the old west hold up between robberies.
Thank you for the update on DC. It was such a wonderful town to grow up in back in the day. Sigh.
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