The "City" of Washington DC

I honestly do not understand how it is that they call Washington D.C. a city. I've lived here for over two years and aside from the traffic find little evidence of it having anything remotely reflective of a city. I work on Caiptol Hill -- please do not confuse me for a hill rat, I simply work in that area. I often take a walk around lunch time to get some air and find some food. I do literally mean find food as it is a good ten minute walk to find anything remotely appetizing to eat around here (that alone causes my blood pressure to rise,) what good is a city that has no food? The thing that really gets to me though is here I am working blocks from the Capitol building and I often find that I am the only person on the streets. The one and only person. Seriously. Now how is this? Lets be honest we know no one on the hill is actually working as I am almost 100% positive that the most work they get done in a day is clicking the side button on their blackberry to check the newest news that has come in only to put the annoying device back down and continue figuring out which bar they will be frequenting that evening. I digress. Back to the point, why am I the only person on the street? Is this not a city? Beyond that is this not the Capitol City of the United States? I do not understand it. Walk on the streets of New York, stroll down the Champs Elysees in Paris, walk out the front of a hotel in London and I guarantee you will be met by a crowd of people, not just in the morning rush, or the afternoon lunch hour but all the time. Washington D.C., not so much. And they call it a city.

You want to know why no one is roaming the streets of D.C.? I'll tell you why -- a few main reasons here so stay with me. First, it is the most impossible city to navigate. I mean honestly there are grids and there are patterns and then there is D.C. a city where you can be standing on the identically corner in four different places and not be anywhere near where you need to be. Who thought that was a good idea. Have you ever seen D.C. from an airplane? It's beautiful, all laid out nicely like a puzzle, I ask you, when was the last time you ever walked or drove on the streets of D.C. from a birds eye view? Oh and I didn't mention that bird's eye view doesn't take into consideration the fact that you can only travel one way down half those streets and that direction may randomly change in the middle of the day to becoming one way another direction, isn't that convenient?

Another reason no one is out on the streets is because D.C. is one of the most unsafe cities in the country. Is that even fathomable? There have to be more police here than in the entire country of Germany yet they somehow can't even seem to get the crime down to manageable let alone safe. My job pays for my metro if I choose to metro to work and honestly I would love to take public transportation and avoid the obnoxious bumper to bumper traffic of D.C. but I am too scared to walk the 15 minutes from the metro to my office and back again especially in the winter months when it gets dark early out. Muggings are a common occurrence in this neighborhood. Bearing this in mind I guess it forces the question, why would anyone be out on the streets.

This brings me to my last point (stay with me here) D.C. sucks as a city because there is nothing drawing people in. The theater area is mediocre at best and only houses tours never anything original and even if it did it's so overpriced no 20-something making a DC salary could afford to go anyway. The food, someone told the restaurant owners in D.C. that it has to be expensive to be good, first of all that's not true, second of all even the expensive restaurants suck. Ever been to Adams Morgan? Not during the school year, the college kids are everywhere and watching drunk underage bleach blonde girls lose their liquor all over the floor while desperately trying to get some Abercrombie looking model to take them home gets old after awhile. What about Georgetown? Well if you like the idea of taking an overpriced cab there or walking a good fifteen minutes from the nearest metro. But then of course how will you get home? The metro conveniently closes at 2 and cab drivers overcharge anyone they can to cross the line into VA or change quadrants did I mention most of the people wanting to go out are 20-somethings making next to nothing in an overpriced city?

Yet we all live here, love it or hate it but a city? I think not.

Well, that's my story.