William F. Yurasko

Mr. CityNerd goes to Washington

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by

wfyurasko
City Nerd DC video hero

Our nation’s capital, and the municipality I work and play in, is featured in this week’s CityNerd.

Ray Delahanty embraces all things cities and transportation, approaching things with a profound love for urban environments and an analytical bent. He has some observations from his late May visit.

I have been watching CityNerd for a few years now and regularly look forward to his weekly videos.

Some highlights

Did CityNerd share everything that makes the District great? Not even close, but he captured A LOT in a day in a half visit:

  • Friday night impromptu dance parties in Dupont Circle
  • Adams Morgan – bohemian and diverse restaurant scene
  • Georgetown “most infamously charming neighborhood”
  • Weekend street markets, Eastern Market
  • Capital Bikeshare, bike lanes and Metropolitan Branch Trail1
  • The Wharf – “I think it’s pretty telling the places DC people hate would probably be considered good urbanism in most other U.S. cities.”
  • Metro – “an absolutely, brutalist masterpiece.” “The system is 50 years old this year and is still pretty magical.”2
  • On National Airport and Metro: “Imagine being a left-leaning influencer and not taking public transit, especially how easy ti is here”
  • Union Station is about as good as an American train station gets.3
  • Pedestrian signals having a countdown in the WALK interval gets his attention, but he concludes it’s “enlightened.”
  • “There’s not much to recommend downtown, other than the Metro stations themselves.”
  • 15th Street bike lane
  • Visiting Petworth during Porchfest

“I spent some time exploring Capitol Hill, which is just beautiful, walkable, gentle density urbanism. It’s also where a lot of our senators and representatives live on our dime when they’re doing our business.

And the irony is hard to escape. A lot of Congress people live their daily lives in the kind of smart, mixed-use urbanism that they then turn around and deny to their constituents. A lot of the people who represent us in the federal government claim to dislike any way of doing things that smacks of a European approach. Yet, they spend their days enjoying the benefits of the great urbanism of America’s most European city. I mean, they even have their own bespoke subway. It’s all just crazy making stuff.

So DC, undoubtedly a giant among the great US cities and with so many unique features, including the fact that this is roughly 700,000 Americans who are represented by zero senators, despite having a higher population than some that are represented by two. And Washingtonians are not even represented in the House in any meaningful way. It’s an injustice. And it also gives the people who live here maybe a bit more of a chip on their shoulder, a bit more of a shared identity and maybe a bit more community.”

It’s just a love-letter. I don’t need reminding that the District (and surrounding area) is a great place, but I enjoy seeing it through the eyes of a visitor.

Previously on CityNerd

The region comes up often – here are a few highlights:

Question

Did CityNerd get better when he grew a beard, a la Will Riker5 on Star Trek: The Next Generation? Probably not, he hit his stride before that, though he’s certainly grown since “season 1.”6

Footnotes

  1. My 2022 MBT post is one of my most visited ↩︎
  2. It certainly is ↩︎
  3. Unless you need to sit down. ↩︎
  4. And Ted Leonsis tried to get ride of it SMDH ↩︎
  5. Played of course, by fellow Penn State alumnus, Jonathan Frakes (’74 Theater). State College was his #1 college town ↩︎
  6. Was this a tortured metaphor and/or a reason to link back to CityNerd praising my (and my wife’s and next month, my oldest son’s) college town? Maybe. ↩︎