Economist.com Cities Guide: Washington, DC Briefing - September 2005

News this month

What a mess

In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the District of Columbia has been busy making room as a temporary home for hundreds of Gulf Coast refugees. Local officials have turned the enormous DC Armory into a refugee headquarters, setting up hundreds of cots, creating separate sleeping sections for men, women and families, and establishing eating and bathing areas, according to the Washington Post. Up to 1,000 people may soon migrate here, and the Armory could house survivors for up to three months. But the exact numbers and arrival time of these refugees are unclear, owing to confusion in the affected region.

District officials agreed to shelter people from Arkansas, where the state was struggling to handle some 10,000 refugees. But federal officials delayed an airlift of 400 people on September 5th, claiming they were still working on a national plan to deal with the hurricane. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's non-voting congressional representative, has criticised this delay, saying: “If they are just setting up a tracking system four or five days after the disaster, they've added insult to outrage.” The District also dispatched ten buses filled with food, supplies and medical staff to the affected area, to help rescue survivors and bring them north.

Shut down

In late August, the federal base-closing commission voted to close the historic Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. Walter Reed, named for the US Army major who proved that yellow fever was spread by mosquitoes, has served America’s soldiers and political leaders since it opened in 1909. But the commission decided that the building was overcrowded and outdated, and that closing it was less expensive than upgrading it. In an unrelated cost-saving move, the commission has also decided to relocate 20,000 Defence Department jobs from the suburbs of Northern Virginia to more remote military bases in the region.

The decision to close the hospital, a 113-acre property in north-west Washington, was a stinging blow for the District. Most of the Walter Reed’s staff and services will be transferred to the National Naval Medical Centre in nearby Bethesda, Maryland. And the decision to move workers from Northern Virginia has sparked opposition from local leaders of both parties. John Warner, a Virginia Senator and the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, complained that the process was rigged against the state.

In power

A coal-fired power plant in Alexandria, Virginia run by the Mirant Corporation, temporarily shut down in late August after local officials found it failed environmental air standards. A recent study by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality found that the plant was emitting sulphur dioxide at up to ten times the legal allowance. The 56-year-old plant supplies power to over 400,000 homes in the District and Maryland, but not to homes in Virginia; local residents have been concerned for years about the plant’s polluting emissions.

Mirant entered an agreement with the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice to reduce its sulphur-dioxide emissions. After reducing the plant's output for several days, Mirant announced on September 1st that they would have to cease operations until they could figure out how to get in line with the standards.
Plant officials have said they would consider burning other types of coal or changing the plant’s technology. The Alexandria plant is a vital part of the city’s energy supply, and its shut-down reduces the metro area’s power reliability, according to a spokesperson for Pepco, which runs the local power grid.

Demographic shifts

It seems the so-called “white flight” to the suburbs has reversed. The non-minority population of the District and its nearby suburbs, Alexandria and Arlington, has grown since 2000, while far-reaching suburbs have become more racially diverse, according to US Census data. The white population of the District grew 7.5% from 2000 to 2004, putting it at 30% of the city's total. In that same period, whites grew 5.7% (57.6% of the total) in Alexandria, and 4.1% (63.5% of the total) in Arlington.

This puts the area among the top ten American jurisdictions for white population growth, according to William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. At the same time the growth of minority populations in outer suburbs, such as Manassas Park, Prince William County, Loudoun County, Charles County and Manassas, was among the top dozen nationally, according to the Washington Post. Overall the metropolitan area’s 5.9m population is 56% white, 25% black, 10% Latino and 8% Asian. Demographic experts think that these population shifts are the result of the continuing real-estate boom, as less prosperous populations get pushed further out into the suburbs.

Get your kicks elsewhere

Interstate 66, stretching west from the District into Virginia, is typically congested. Conditions have been even worse lately, as the Virginia Department of Transportation shuts down an almost four-mile stretch of the road near Manassas in order to widen it. The westbound lanes for a 3.9-mile stretch are shut from 9pm to 5am on Monday to Thursday nights, and 9pm to 9am on Saturdays. The road is open on Friday nights, to accommodate weekend travellers escaping the city. Drivers are given a detour during the closure. Department of Transportation Officials estimated that the closures could cause delays of 45 minutes to an hour. The road-work, which began in late August, is expected to take roughly two months.

Catch if you can

September 2005

Where Gods and Mortals Meet: Continuity and Renewal in Urhobo Art

Until September 25th 2005

The 1.5m Urhobo who occupy the western edge of the Niger River delta in Nigeria are in the midst of a dramatic transition, as they evolve their ancient cultural traditions for the modern world. The exhibit explores the way Urhobo artists are working to reconcile these two very different worlds. Expect a rich variety of media, including intricately carved wooden masks and idols, copper works with supposedly divine origins, and videos of contemporary Urhobo. Scattered throughout the show are pictures by Bruce Onobrakpeya, a contemporary Urhobo artist.

The National Museum of African Art, on the National Mall at 950 Independence Ave, SW. Open: daily 10am-5pm. Entry: free. For more information, visit the museum’s website.

More from the Washington, DC cultural calendar