This is part three of my five-part blog series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the District of Columbia.
Well, I kind of lost my every-Monday track for this blog series, thanks to the busyness that is college life, but I will persevere and get through this series. Last week I described an overview of the algorithm by which the city is laid out, which is great to be aware of if you’re driving or walking. But for most residents in the metro area, and certainly if you’re a college student in the District, you’re more likely to think about the layout of the region based on public transportation, specifically the Washington Metro map.
The Washington Metro (technically “Metrorail,” though no one really calls it that) is the #2 most-used heavy rail system in the country, and it is the central hub that all other public transit in the region revolves around. Compared to other regions of the country, it really is an incredible system.
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This is part two of my five-part blog series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the District of Columbia. The series will be published on each Monday in January 2011.
Last week, I inaugurated this blog series with a history of DC’s Home Rule efforts, but this week, I’m going to lighten it up a bit with more of a primer on how to navigate your way around the city. Because Washington is a city that has been laid out and planned in a very interesting way that is quite logical and systematic on paper, but in reality, it gets quite confusing for a lot of people.
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This is part one of my five-part blog series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the District of Columbia. The series will be published on each Monday in January 2011.
Yesterday, Vincent Gray was sworn in as the seventh Mayor of the District of Columbia. Also sworn in for new terms were seven members of the thirteen-member DC Council and 268 commissioners of the 37 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in the District.
Did you follow any of that? Chances are, probably not. Before I started attending AU, the fact that the federal government wasn’t the only government in Washington, DC certainly hadn’t crossed my mind that dramatically. But now, after calling Washington my second home for a year and a half, I’ve learned quite a lot about my adoptive city, hence why I’m dedicating this month to write this new blog series.
The District of Columbia actually has quite a bit more within its 68 square miles than monuments, museums, and federal government buildings. Throw in eleven public and private four-year educational institutions, a number of parks, and oh yeah, actual residents. The 2010 Census just announced that the District’s population has risen to 601,723 residents. That’s almost 40,000 more residents than the entire state of Wyoming, and only about 24,000 shy of the state of Vermont. Yet despite this, residents in DC have almost no representation in the national government, and have only had control over their own local affairs for the past 36 years.
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