It was before my time, but I believe the last “recession” Washington DC faced was the 1968 riots. Dupont Circle was just becoming gentrified in the 70s, and even in the early-mid 80s, Chinatown on H street had decrepit, derelict buildings.
Fed.gov then discovered massive debt and asset bubbles, supported by printed, fiat money and manipulated interest rates, courtesy of the Federal Reserve. And ALL that money, in some form, passed through gatekeepers in Washington DC. It is truly the center of the empire.
Back then I had the opportunity to join the firm of a (small) local real-estate developer, who later became quite huge taking advantage of this never-ending flow of money through DC. Biggest career mistake ever!
I have a relative who was a senior banking executive. After a couple of other stops in the Midwest he took a lucrative offer from a D.C. bank.
He quickly learned that he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. His employees in that town displayed a certain moral fungibility that he had not seen anywhere else on the planet. He packed-up and moved back to Pittsburgh literally days after he retired.