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I spent several years around DC (living in Arlington). It became obvious that there’s two areas of DC (west and northwest) where changes are allowed to happen if the money is there. East and southeast? Well....those are mostly down-and-out neighborhoods, urban decay.

Grocery stores are almost non-existent in the Anacosta neighborhood (southeast). In this one by one sq mile area, I think there’s one single grocery left. All of the locals complain about this.

So Wal-Mart came to have interest. Not just one store....but seveal. It all made sense. The lots were un-used and the communities were in dire need of stores. Well...the groups and city council got all peppy about this. Certain conditions had to be met. Wal-Mart sat there laughing over the games played.

You had to pay off the various groups to make things right. DC demanded that the employees all had to be DC residents. This went back and forth....this is rule you can’t force. I think they came to some mutual conclusion that a high percentage would be Washington residents.

The gimmick is the community “aggregators” and the political folks who use this whipping up of “blackness” to ensure nothing moves forward or improves. It amazes me that no tries to push them aside and fix the neighborhoods.

You aren’t kidding re: the south and east sections of DC being filled with blight. About 15 years ago, for work, I was sent to Coast Guard Headquarters in DC for a week. I was told by my government boss (who worked for Navy R&D in San Diego, where I also lived) that “in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS” was I to take the rental car down to “Buzzard’s point” — the REAL “old time term” for that area — which is, as the crow flies about 2 miles directly south or so of the US Capitol building, right on the river. He said he’d basically “kick my @ss” because for sure if I did not arrive at the crack of dawn to park in the CGHQ underground parking, I’d have to park on the street, and I might as well just park up on concrete blocks and leave the doors open, because the car would be stripped by the time I got off work. He said I was to take public xport to L’enfant Plaza, and catch the government run bus for people who worked at Coast Guard HQ — and not to take other public transport down there, ONLY that bus. And promptly when work ended to take same xport back to L’Enfant plaza. And frankly, try not to hang around on street at either end.

What I saw, is something EVERY American should see, just once. A ghetto, with a CAPITAL G, and something so disgusting every American should be ashamed that an “urban area” like this exists at all in the US, much less in our nation’s capital, so relatively close to all the nice “tourist areas” — L’Enfant Plaza itself, is more or less lower-class. That is the LAST possible street anyone would want to live on that far south, and frankly, even that’s too damn close to the ‘hood for safety. Because that’s where the hoods migrate north to shop. For every 2 to three blocks you went south for the next mile until CQHQ, you literally saw the neighborhood deteriorate. The first few blocks south, you could tell that people still had jobs, because the little houses, were reasonably tidy and kept up to an “okay but not fabulous” degree. Some self respect. Then you literally went another 2-3 blocks, and you could tell, trash in the little yards, people sitting out drinking, then the next few blocks, public high rises that were throughly trashy. Litter EVERYWHERE, cursing teens cutting school, hanging out up to no good, then the next few blocks. You could see boarded up windows, evidence of FIRE damage — but incredibly, people walking into these dumps. Vacant lots with trash....further south. Completely unoccupied “public housing” that was all boarded up and completely burnt out. More vacant lots with trash piled high that you’re sure rats would love for miles around. And then, at the tip of “Buzzard’s point” Coast Guard HQ.

You took the elevator up, and you could literally see vacant lots with a burnt out car or two at your feet, and two-3 miles off in the distance, our nation’s Capitol building. I imagine Soweto might even have it better.