Washington, D.C.

B

Transportation

For years the hub of transportation to and from Washington was Union Station, served by several railroads. Built in 1907, Union Station occupies 10 hectares (25 acres) in the heart of the city. During the second half of the 20th century, airports and highways became important. Washington is served by three commercial airports—Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, and Baltimore-Washington International Airport—with extensive national and international connections.

In 1964 an expressway known as the Capital Beltway (comprising interstate highways 495 and 95) was completed around Washington to facilitate traffic. Its 36 cloverleaf intersections link it to all major routes to and from the city. In 1976 a subway system opened in the city that extends into Virginia and Maryland suburbs. Called the Metro, the system extends more than 160 km (100 mi) throughout the Washington metropolitan area.

C

Economic Problems

A result of the growth of Washington’s white-collar employment in the 1980s was an increasing gap in income among the city’s residents. Disadvantaged areas, predominantly black neighborhoods, became subject to a plague of drugs and associated violence. These areas were concentrated in the older sections of the northeast and the southeast quadrants of the city. Even as downtown real estate values rose, so did Washington’s murder rate. While the metropolitan region prospered, much of the inner city lagged behind. The city’s tax base declined as more and more middle- and upper-middle-class families moved to the suburbs. This lower tax base contributed to a fiscal crisis for the city.

VII

Government and Contemporary Issues

Unlike any other part of the United States, Washington lacks full political representation. While its political structure has changed over time, the city has remained subordinate to the federal government. This situation is sustained under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, which states, “The Congress shall have power … to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district … as may by the cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government.” The idea of exclusive jurisdiction solidified in 1783 when Congress, then meeting in Philadelphia, faced angry veterans of the American Revolution who demanded back pay. When Pennsylvania authorities failed to intervene to protect the Congress, many members insisted that any permanent seat of government should be under congressional control. From that virtually forgotten experience, Washington remains without direct representation in the national government that oversees much of its operation.

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The Constitution, however, did not prohibit the establishment of a lower government body to deal with local affairs. In 1802 Congress authorized an appointed mayor and an elected city council for Washington. In 1820 it broadened the franchise and made the office of mayor subject to popular election. In 1871 Congress substituted a largely appointed territorial government—although city residents still voted for a house of delegates—as an instrument to consolidate the cities of Washington and Georgetown with Washington County. When the experiment generated costs that Congress found too expensive, it eliminated popular election in Washington in 1874 by placing local government under a three-person commission appointed by the president.

Initially this system was favorably received for replacing partisan politics with professional management. However, flaws of the commission became apparent over time. In 30 investigations conducted between 1934 and 1941, Congress found that power and responsibility were poorly divided between commissioners and different federal agencies, and that political whim controlled most actions. Starting in 1949 and lasting for more than a decade, the Senate voted repeatedly to grant Washington local elections. However, the House District Committee refused for more than 20 years to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Finally in 1973, Congress authorized the popular election of a mayor and city council for Washington.

In 1974 the Home Rule Act, which established the mayor and city council, became law. The act, though restoring popular elections, retained considerable power for Congress to review legislation and authorize Washington’s budget. It also prohibited the city from taxing federal properties or income earned in the city by people who commuted to work from outside the district. These restrictions remain a cause of tension between city officials and Congress.

In the mid-1970s local activists started an effort to secure Washington’s independence. They argued that the Constitution dictates only a maximum size for the federal district, not a minimum size. Therefore, they suggested that the federal district shrink to the area between the White House and the Capitol and that the residential portion of the District of Columbia become a new state, New Columbia. Congress, however, failed even to vote on the proposition until 1993, when the House of Representatives rejected the measure, 277-153. Further efforts by city residents to secure representation in Congress were rebuffed when a three-judge panel ruled in 2000 that it had no means to remedy their exclusion.

Marion Barry dominated local Washington politics during the last quarter of the 20th century. He served as mayor all but four years from 1978 to early 1999. During his early years in office, Barry established a reputation as an able administrator and a defender of home rule who was committed to solving the city’s social problems. In later years, scandal touched his administration, and in 1990 he lost a bid for a council seat after he was arrested and convicted of smoking crack cocaine. After serving six months in prison, he made a spectacular comeback, securing election first to city council in 1992 and then as mayor in 1994. Barry’s return to power sparked immediate controversy. However, it soon became clear that the city faced an even greater crisis in a projected budget deficit of more than $700 million in 1995.

With the city unable to secure loans from the private sector to pay its debts, Congress intervened by passing the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act of 1995. This measure established a control board with significant powers, a move Congress justified on grounds that poor management and overstaffing had jeopardized the city’s credit. Under terms of the act, the president appointed five people to the board to bring the city’s finances under control. Congress directed the control board to cut jobs.

Barry, however, refused to cooperate with the control board, and instead chose to stress the city’s needs. He claimed that Washington’s problems derived more from inadequate revenues than high costs, and he urged the federal government to pay more toward Washington’s obligations. He recommended that the federal government assume many of the costs of state functions borne by the city since 1974, but his proposal received no sympathy in Congress. However, two years later, without input from the mayor, President Bill Clinton incorporated Barry’s approach in his proposed federal budget. In 1997 the national government raised its share of Medicare and highway costs in the city, assumed responsibility for funding Washington’s pension plan, and took over operation of the District’s prison system.

In accepting these measures, Congress insisted on exercising greater influence in Washington. It empowered the control board to choose its own city manager and to extend its operational control over all but a small portion of daily operations. Under the terms Congress set in establishing the control board, these powers were to revert to the city only after it achieved four balanced budgets in a row. After the election of Anthony Williams, who replaced Barry as mayor in early 1999, Congress restored the authority for the city’s day-to-day management to the mayor and city council. In 2001 the city government announced that it had balanced its fourth consecutive budget, and the control board ceded the rest of its powers back to the government.

VIII

History

Washington’s contemporary crisis is deeply rooted in its history. From the beginning, there was tension stemming from the city’s dual function as both city and capital. In reserving the right to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the federal district, Congress lavished attention on some sections of the city while other parts suffered neglect, making a clash of interests inevitable.

George Washington saw no conflict between city and capital. To the contrary, he conceived of the new capital as the keystone to the nation-building process. He believed that the District of Columbia’s advantageous location on the Potomac River would let it exploit trade opportunities to the west. Such success could have secured national loyalty, but the states were too jealous of one another to join in promoting a national city.

The first problem arose over selection of the city site. The state governments fought bitterly over the site of the capital, hoping a nearby location would allow them special influence on the new government. Then, once a location was chosen, the states resisted paying taxes for improvements necessary to house the new government. To finance the building of the city, the district’s land was parceled into lots, two-thirds of which were reserved for highways and federal buildings. The remainder was sold to the public. Despite this, funds lagged. Also, the plans of the man hired to build the city, Pierre L’Enfant, were so costly, and L’Enfant himself so embroiled in disputes with landowners, that he was eventually fired, in 1792. As a result, the federal district was far from complete by the time the national government moved there in 1800.

Federal funding for improvements remained small in the capital’s early years. Development was slow, and the city evoked criticism from visitors from the United States and abroad. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the city was occupied and burned by the British. This meant that much of the city had to be completely rebuilt, which further taxed funds.

When the city sought congressional aid to build a canal west to boost its trade, Congress refused. By the time it finally authorized the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal in 1828 it was too late to make a difference. A decade earlier, New York had completed the highly successful Erie Canal, and it was dominating western trade. Also, Baltimore leaped ahead of Washington in the race for regional control when it started work on the nation’s first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O), in 1828.

In 1835 a committee of Congress headed by Senator Samuel Southard admitted that congressional funding for the District was inadequate. Southard argued that the grand plan for the city was too great a burden for local authorities to sustain alone. His report generated enough federal funds to repay a debt owed on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, but urban needs continued to exceed revenues into the 1860s.

After the Civil War, Republicans in Congress saw a chance to continue implementing social reforms in Washington. Washington had abolished slavery in 1862, becoming the first place to enforce the emancipation of slaves. After the war, Congress ended the segregation of public transportation and eliminated all references to race in the civil code. Congress granted voting rights to black males, even as many Northern states rejected such measures. With overwhelming black support, local Republicans assumed political power in Washington in 1868.

Some party members resisted social innovations, however, seeking instead to promote the physical improvement of the city. After the British burned the city in 1814, Congress had considered moving Washington to another location. Relocation became an issue again with so many necessary physical improvements deferred during the Civil War. Locals argued that without investment in the physical city, the government would abandon Washington, and it would be doomed.

Mainstream Republicans—headed by Alexander Shepherd, a former plumber who entered politics during the war—campaigned for a shift from social to physical reconstruction. In 1870 they broke with Radical Republicans in power and elected their own candidate for mayor. The following year they persuaded Congress to impose an entirely new form of territorial government, with a governor and senate appointed by the president and a house of delegates elected by popular vote.

Alexander Shepherd assumed considerable influence in the new government through his position as administrator of a new board of public works. Under his direction, the city systematically upgraded its physical appearance: grading and paving streets, planting trees, and developing sewers. These improvements quelled efforts to move the capital to a more central location in the United States.

But Shepherd’s expenditures also provoked controversy, prompting congressional investigations in 1872 and 1874. In the first instance, a friendly committee gently chided the District government, declaring that in pursuing the city’s betterment the debt level should not exceed $10 million. By 1874 power had shifted in Congress, and Shepherd now faced hostile critics. With debt exceeding $18 million, Shepherd claimed that unpaid taxes and the lack of an adequate tax base hampered him. Congress was sympathetic at least to that point, and members reiterated the judgment of the Southard report of 1835 that the city could not sustain the expense associated with the federal government.

Congress then embraced a plan to provide a regular federal payment to the District to meet at least half its operating expenses. In accepting this argument, however, members of Congress insisted on more direct control. In 1874 they replaced territorial government with a commission of three people, appointed by the president. One of the people on the commission was to be chosen from the ranks of the Army Corps of Engineers and was responsible for overseeing public works.

A number of physical improvements followed, and as the turn of the century approached, Washington assumed modern form. However, the federal presence lacked distinction. With encouragement from representatives of the American Institute of Architects, a special Senate commission formed to lay out a new plan for Washington. Presented with considerable fanfare in 1902, this proposal projected an arrangement of federal buildings along the Mall connected to a regional system of parks. It took more than 25 years to realize this vision, but by the early 1930s, as the Federal Triangle complex along Pennsylvania Avenue neared completion, city planners could claim that the capital city was at last worthy of the national government it hosted.

Instead of uniting city and capital, however, emergence of the new city core set the federal presence apart from Washington’s residential areas. This possibility had been recognized as early as the turn of the century. While the Senate prepared its elaborate plan, social activists expressed concern for the rest of Washington. They pointed particularly to unhealthy conditions in many poor neighborhoods, especially in back alleys where small houses had been built to accommodate a largely black population.

Efforts to secure better housing conditions occupied several generations of reformers. First, private funding was used to provide housing for low-income residents, and in the 1930s Washington formed the nation’s first public housing authority. The Langston Terrace public housing complex in Northeast Washington was built with funds provided by the federal government. There, blacks found improved housing. But policy shifted after World War II. Fearing the effect of white families relocating to the suburbs, Congress authorized funds to provide a model urban renewal program in Washington’s Southwest sector. Designed to attract middle-income residents back to the city, the wholesale renewal of the area resulted in the displacement of many of the area’s predominantly black residents.

The federal funds that had made possible the improvement of an old section of Washington improved city revenues, but they also heightened tension with the city’s growing black population. A subsequent renewal effort in the Shaw area immediately north of downtown provoked neighborhood opposition around the rallying cry, “No more Southwests.” Out of that experience emerged a powerful coalition of civic groups determined to plan their neighborhood’s renewal themselves. When Congress authorized a nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives from Washington in 1971, the leader of the neighborhood renewal effort, Walter Fauntroy, was the first to fill the position. He supported the political ascent of fellow civil rights activist Marion Barry.

The home rule era was thus inaugurated in 1974 as an assertion of local as opposed to federal prerogatives. As its most successful representative, Marion Barry was adept at securing federal funding, but at the same time he consciously built his political strength at home by distancing himself from federal oversight. Suspicion of national government became so ingrained among the majority of local residents that Barry easily regained power even after his arrest and conviction for drug use. Congress’s decision in 1995 to impose a control board on the city struck many residents as one more blow to the city’s political independence. Although the board promised to seek solutions to the city’s political as well as fiscal problems, finances took precedence. Barry chose not to seek reelection in 1998, and voters elected Anthony Williams, who had been the city’s chief financial officer under the control board, as the new mayor. Despite this political change, city and capital remained in an uneasy and unsettled relationship at the beginning of the 21st century.

On September 11, 2001, Washington, D.C., and New York City became the targets of a coordinated terrorist attack on the United States. Hijackers seized four passenger jetliners. Two jets crashed into the twin skyscrapers of New York City’s World Trade Center, causing their collapse and destruction as thousands tried to evacuate. The third hijacked jet crashed into the Pentagon, the nation’s military headquarters just outside of Washington, D.C., severely damaging the building and killing close to 200 people, including those on the aircraft. The fourth hijacked jet crashed in rural Pennsylvania, but officials speculated that it, too, had been destined to destroy a Washington, D.C., landmark, such as the White House. In total, the September 11 attacks left almost 3,000 people dead.

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