From Wikitravel

Pierre, you're deafinitely a punster. --Evan 13:07, 5 Feb 2004 (EST)

Inhearently so. -phma 21:03, 5 Feb 2004 (EST)

I'm moving the transport links to embedded links to this reason: "Washington Flyer (http://www.washfly.com/)" includes the closing ) as part of the clickable text and as part of the URL, which means all the URLs in that section don't actually work. - Hypatia 16:09, 3 Sep 2004 (EDT)

[edit] Just a little to much agenda?

"somewhat dysfunctional US Federal government" "itself underfunded" "To make things worse, the US congress often intervenes in city government while subordinating local concerns to national, partisan squabbles."

These statements are awful slanted. Is this article's intent to be a rallying cry for D.C., or information regarding visiting D.C.?

"In addition to the problems caused by its political status, DC also suffers from some very serious cultural divides within its population. DC is simultaneously inhabited by some of the most privileged and underprivileged US citizens and the ideals of a temporary governing, professional population often conflict with the needs of this real-world metropolis' permanent residents."

Palestinian and Jews have a "serious cultural divide" in Israel. Living and working in D.C., I can say while divides may exist (as do in most places), I'd be pretty doubtful to call it "serious".

As some side notes:

D.C.'s annual budget is approximately $6.2 billion, composing of 60 square miles.

That budget is more than North and South Dakota's states' budgets combined (representing nearly 150,000 square miles). It also equals the entire budget of Delaware.

DC's budget works out to be about $100 MILLION dollars per square mile. Compared to North & South Dakota's which is roughly $42,000 per square mile.

D.C. may indeed need more money, but I'm not sure it is as broke as this article is suggesting.

You've got to be joking. That's lame compared to what's currently written. The $100 million figure and the North Dakota figure you use are misleading. Based on the information you provided, North Dakota's total budget is ~ $2,972,004, while D.C.'s is in excess of $6 billion. There are different priorities compared to ND and DC, primarily one of these two places has nuclear warheads aimed at it so one of these places needs to have impecabale security, one of these places is so small it has infrastructure requirements that the other doesn't need. Both places have roughly the same population level, but because DC is more compact it needs things a guy in Fargo doesn't need – a police force with enough gun power to invade Holland, a subway, just to name a few.

But, the point of the article is not how broke the city government is, but rather how broke its residents are. Go to any park in DC and you'll find homeless people. Now, you can find homeless people anywhere, but there seems to be an unusually high number in DC. Hence, the bit about the city being shared by some of the nation's poorest and richest individuals. Congress can pass stupid bills and laws, but can't help out it's own homeless neighbors, who live less than 100 yards from their offices? Well, I do believe that's the definition of "dysfunctional". -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 16:56, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

Sapphire: Sorry I meant North & South there. $42,000 * 150,000 sq miles = $6,300,000,000. I'm not suggesting all things are equal, I am suggesting "severely underfunded" has a lot to do with one's opinion and/or agenda. Besides lobbying for DC what does this information add to the article? Is a visitor to DC being substantially hampered by some lack of a DC Government resource because of budgetary issues?

"Serious cultural divide" would be euphemistic for the war in Israel/Palestine, for DC it is merely fair. And I say that having grown up and spent most of my life here thank you very much. "Agendas" spoil (ahem) encyclopedia articles, lively writing on the other hand makes travel guides worth reading. --Peter ^Talk 18:06, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Why I added the Within city limits of D.C

Have you ever walked from downtown D.C. to the National Zoo? I have, and it takes a while. I didn't want people to be misled into thinking that it's a short walk. I think that for the D.C. listings, "Downtown" should be defined as whatever is within a short walk of the National Mall. Of course, that calls into question what should be "Downtown" and what should be listed under "The National Mall". Take the White House, for example.

I also wonder about the "Elsewhere" section. Should it include daytrips like Mount Vernon, Williamsburg and Shenandoah National Park?

It's only my second day here, so please forgive any formatting errors. Using this Wiki software takes some getting used to.

Day trips outside DC should prob go in Get Out. "Elsewhere" is redundant now you've made "Within city limits", which is better. Nurg 00:35, 12 Jan 2005 (EST)

[edit] How to explain D.C?

I, Mikito, think it's important that the D.C. in Washington D.C. be explained. Someone who isn't from the U.S. might wonder about the name. As of this writing, I have the text "Washington (D.C.), also known as the District of Columbia, is the capital..." but that still feels clunky to me. I think it's worth saying in the introduction that Washington D.C. isn't part of any state, I think it's interesting, but it's not that interesting either. A more detailed explanation could go under "Understand", but that might be overkill. 67.1.104.147 12:03, 12 Jan 2005 (EST)

I certainly think it is worth explaining, perhaps not in total detail like Wikipedia might but certainly sufficiently to give some historical insight for the traveller. If you do not want to do it in a Washington (D.C.) article then you could explain it in a District of Columbia article, as that is a region - like a state - rather than a city article. -- Huttite 16:33, 12 Jan 2005 (EST)

But DC and Washington (D.C.) are one and the same, aren't they, so we wouldn't have 2 articles. Nurg 02:44, 13 Jan 2005 (EST)

No, they are not. For example: Silver Spring is a suburb of Washington (D.C.) but it is in Maryland. This means the District of Columbia is different from (and probably smaller than) Washington (D.C.). Whether it deserves an article of its own is questionable, but certainly a mention, and a redirect to the page section where that mention is made, at least. -- Huttite 03:21, 14 Jan 2005 (EST)

We almost always do a separate article for suburbs. My understanding is that Washington and the District of Columbia are coterminous (they have the same borders). --Evan 06:17, 14 Jan 2005 (EST)

Ok, if that is the case it sounds like District of Columbia is best explained in the Understand section. I was getting the impression that Washington is a sprawling conurbation that has exceeded the District of Columbia boundaries. -- Huttite 06:32, 14 Jan 2005 (EST)

I'd suggest a floating infobox for this. Jpatokal 02:54, 13 Jan 2005 (EST)

Or just something for the Understand section. -- Mark 04:50, 13 Jan 2005 (EST)

I think Evan has done the best job so far in dealing with this issue, with his greatly expanded "Understand" section. Good job! -- Mikito 14:05, 14 Jan 2005 (EST)

[edit] How to make The National Mall more readable?

I'm concerned about the length and density of the National Mall listing. There's a lot to see on the Mall, but that also makes for a big block of unrelieved text.

I was thinking of splitting the attractions listing so that it would list the museums along Constitution Avenue (the north side) and have a space break before the Independence Avenue (south side) listings.

The thing is, there are some items which are centrally located, like the Washington Monument. I also don't want to end up making the whole thing more confusing in an attempt to improve how it looks.

I'm also thinking of spinning off the US Capitol into a separate Capitol Hill listing which would eventually include Union Station, the National Postal Museum, the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress. Again, this is in order to break up the text into manageable chunks. -- Mikito 17:12, 13 Jan 2005 (EST)

The Mall and/or Capitol Hill would probably be classified as a districts of Washington (D.C.). If you wanted to split them off into separate pages have a look at the Article templates. -- Huttite 06:28, 14 Jan 2005 (EST)

I don't plan on spinning off "The National Mall" or "Capitol Hill" onto their own pages, at least yet. There's still a lot of work to be done in expanding the content before I think they would truly merit their own pages. Down the road, perhaps. That would also work well with other areas like Georgetown and Dupont Circle. -- Mikito 14:06, 14 Jan 2005 (EST)

[edit] Source material to add to Sleep

The PyCon wiki has some information they've researched on accomodation:

• http://www.python.org/moin/PyConDC2005/Accommodation
• http://www.python.org/moin/PyConDC2005/ForCheap

(PyCon is a conference about the Python programming language).

Someone looking to expand the Sleep section might find some useful source material there.

Spiv 19:44, 21 Jan 2005 (EST)

[edit] Metro service levels

What is the source of the information stating that Metrorail is increasing service levels as of January 1, 2006? I have never seen that information before, and I can guarantee you that there is no such increase planned (i.e., Metro will never be running 24 hours/day). The only relevant tidbit about increased service levels is that Metro is now testing the operation of 8-car trains on some lines during peak hours, and hopes to eventually implement full usage of 8-car trains. - Snowman83

Welcome Snowman83. If you think it is wrong, please plunge forward and correct it. --Huttite 15:27, 2 Jan 2006 (EST)

[edit] External links removed from the main page

The following links were on the main page, someone may be able to use them for research:

• Washington DC City Pages - Tourism
• METRO
• Washington Post
• Washington City Paper
• DCRails.com - Metrorail map based on Google Maps
• barDC- Washington DC bars and clubs

Moved by -- Tom Holland (xltel) 15:27, 20 March 2006 (EST)

[edit] Copyvio -- which way?

I noticed that some of the text on this page is similar to [1]. ("Fast forward two hundred years..."). Did it get grabbed from there, or did someone grab it from here and put it there? Either way, it's someone's copyvio. I don't have time to do the detective work right now. -- Jonboy 18:36, 5 May 2006 (EDT)

They're copyvio'ing us. See their San Francisco article which contains See-style attraction listings. (My favorite part is the lede for their SF article is actually about San Diego. -- Colin 18:46, 5 May 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Pet peeve

I hate that we call this article Washington (D.C.)! Anyone object to renaming it to the appropriate name - Washington, D.C.? We could use this as a redirect, but I'd be much happier. (If that counts for anything). - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 19:33, 23 May 2006 (EDT)

I agree that "Washington, D.C." would be a better name for this article (and in fact, I've been operating under the delusion that it was the name of it). The city of Washington is not in fact in D.C.; it is D.C.; they're two names for the same place. Although we may say "Washington" as shorthand (like we say "L.A." or "Vegas"), the most common English-language name for this place is "Washington, D.C." That's also the clearest version to use for wikilinking, rather than requiring piping or redirects. - Todd VerBeek 18:49, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

I'll move the page tonight and work on fixing redirects and "Whatlinkshere" when the site is less busy. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 19:02, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

I disagree with this move; please don't do it right now. --Evan 23:04, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Alright, might I ask why? -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:07, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Just wanted to get that in there quick. First, the "appropriate" name is the one that fits with our Wikitravel:Article naming conventions. I think the most common English name for this city is "Washington", not "Washington, D.C.". At least the Getty Thesaurus says so. "(D.C.)" is not part of the name; it's a disambiguator so we can have Washington (state) and other Washingtons around the world.

City, State is a disambiguation method frequently used for American cities, which is why "Washington, D.C." (as well as "Dallas, Texas" and "Denver, Colorado") are commonly-used names. We don't normally use this disambiguation method on Wikitravel, mostly because using parens for disambiguation lets you auto-hide the disambiguator (like [[Paris (Texas)|]]).

SO, I guess what I want to say is that this article name conforms to our naming conventions, and if we have to break them, let's do that thoughtfully, knowingly, and carefully. We should be able to explain why we have "Washington, D.C." but not "Santa Fe, New Mexico". I'm not opposed to it -- I agree that Washington, D.C. is more natural -- but let's be careful. Andrew, if you still think it's a good idea after reading all the way through this, you have my vote of confidence to move it. --Evan 23:28, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

I do think you have a point for non-Americans and non-Canadians who do not understand writing "Columbus, Ohio" following the ANC makes sense to them. It's not life or death for me so I'll gladly go about being annoyed by the parens. :) See I'm already smiling. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:34, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

I suppose I'm way too late here, but I've always felt that the city is most often referred to as Washington D.C., no commas, no parentheses. Calling it just "Washington" sounds, to me at least, borderline incorrect. And wouldn't (D.C.) be an inappropriate disambiguation name anyways? "Washington" is not contained by D.C. (unlike Saint Petersburg (Russia)); Washington is the equivalent of D.C. And DC is not the type of destination (unlike say Washington (state)). A proper disambiguation per our naming conventions would be "Washington (city)," but that would be ridiculous. If there are objections to just calling this Washington D.C., I'll drop this, but if there's any support, I would like to change the name, since typing "(D.C.)" is a pain. --Peter ^Talk 19:57, 27 August 2007 (EDT)

I've left this alone for a long time without altering the status quo. Does anyone still hold that this article shouldn't be moved to Washington D.C.? It's way easier to type (and I'll be typing it a lot while fixing the districts hierarchy), but more importantly Washington DC is the most common English name. "DC" is not a disambiguator akin to affixing a state abbreviation to a town—DC and Washington are technically coterminous. Regardless of the technicality, people here call it Washington DC, making that the most common name whether you like it or not. Moreover, foreign visitors who talk about having visited "Washington" mostly just confuse people who are actually from here, so it would be good to make it all clear at the top of the page.

I don't think the arguments advanced earlier in defense of keeping the article here are correct. If no objections, I'll wait a couple weeks and then move the page. --Peter ^Talk 05:39, 9 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Districts

Long discussion moved to Talk:Washington, D.C./Districts discussion. Please do not continue districts discussion here, rather, state your concerns there.

We need to eliminate districts from this article ASAP. As it is, most of the districts articles have almost no content. The districts themselves make no sense, certainly not to an outside visitor. And important new attractions, such as the Newseum, are not listed ANYWHERE. Sadly, dividing the article into districts has resulted in making the entire article less usable and less relevant.

I'm aware that there is a long "districts discussion" page linked to above, I'll gladly continue the discussion over there. But given that summer travel season is coming up, we seriously need to improve the article now. SONORAMA 21:58, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

Yes lets keep the discussion → in one place. --Peter ^Talk 18:00, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Metro Service Levels

NOTE--METRO SERVICE LEVELS DISCUSSION NEEDS TO BE REWRITTEN TO REFLECT NEW 2007 YELLOW LINE OFF-PEAK SERVICE CHANGES (i.e. service from Mt. Vernon Square to Fort Totten)! —The preceding comment was added by 68.239.77.220 (talk • contribs) 15 Jan 2007.

Note: please don't SHOUT, and if you see a problem that needs fixing, plunge forward and make it better yourself! --Peter ^Talk 04:50, 21 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Unfit for publishing

The following paragraph is should be reworded or removed. There is no citation or reference for this accusation/speculation. It could also be considered deragatory and based on inaccurate assumptions.

Meanwhile, a large portion of Washington's population is African-American...A comically and occasionally dangerously dysfunctional city, that is the home of the somewhat dysfunctional US Federal government. Simultaneously inhabited by the most informed and ignorant US citizens. Simultaneously inhabited by some of the most privileged and underprivileged US citizens.

We don't like citations. Who has ever heard of a travel guide making citations!? Lastly, our philosophy is - if there's something wrong and you know about it - fix it! -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 15:36, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

Also: "a full two thirds of the metropolitan area's residents were born in another country" is manifestly untrue. link Population of the Washington--Baltimore, DC--MD--VA--WV Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area: 7,608,070. Born in the U.S. and its territories: 6,627,449. Foreign-born: 980,621. Okay...I read the philosophy...though not wikiwise, I fixed this.

Hmm, 2/3 is definitely wrong, but looking at the consolidated version w/ Baltimore is a bit misleading, as Baltimore city & county have way less immigrants than D.C. & its surrounding counties. I think I read in the Economist a long while back that the figure was about 1/3 the population was foreign born. --Peter ^Talk 19:14, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] WTF!?

WTF: a charming park district in Northwest D.C. and speculated site of Chandra Levy!? Is Ms. Levy really that noteworthy of an attraction in D.C.? I think not. Plus, no one except the Congressman and God knows where she is. I'm removing the reference to her. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 00:03, 31 May 2007 (EDT)

Her remains were found in Rock Creek Park in 2002. "It's not news — it's CNN" -- Colin 02:14, 31 May 2007 (EDT)

So what happened to Congressman? -- 71.72.212.152 02:20, 31 May 2007 (EDT)

WikiPedia:Chandra Levy -- Colin 20:54, 31 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Taxi drivers = criminals?!

I'm at pains to assume good faith here. Despite having lived in DC pretty much my entire life, I've never heard of a taxi driver mugging a customer, although taxi drivers are themselves victims of armed robbery daily. And I just did a google search that turned up nothing. DC cab drivers are wonderful people who have hard, rather dangerous jobs, who work hard to build a life for their families here, and I'll be honest, I take some offense at slander directed towards them. I would definitely like to see some sources talking about how this is a problem (and a one time event does not constitute a trend—if there even was such a one time event). --Peter ^Talk 16:59, 20 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Address system

I've been trying to divine the system by which locations are given even or odd addresses in DC. I haven't found any positive proof, but I haven't so far been able to disprove the following scheme:

NW: even south & west, odd north & east NE: even north & west, odd south & east SW: even south & east, odd north & west SE: even north & east, odd south & west

Can anyone disprove this? Or does anyone have positive knowledge of how the DC address system works? --Peter ^Talk 23:53, 20 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] National Mall map

If anyone has suggestions for the National Mall map—if I've left anything important off, or something like that—please let me know. --Peter ^Talk 20:58, 23 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Breadcrumbs

I'm not getting the breadcumb navigation on this article, even though the {{IsIn}} template is present. Is it just me? LtPowers 15:35, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

No, not just you. This page is screwy for some reason & causes all RDF features to break. I'm also a docent for D.C., but I don't appear on the right. See shared:Tech:D.C. has problems (on Wikitravel too). --Peter ^Talk 16:21, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Washington and the District of Columbia are not coterminous

From Webster: "coterminous - having the same or coincident boundaries"

The "City of Washington" no longer exists and therefore cannot be coterminous with the District of Columbia. Washington was merged into the District of Columbia in 1871. There is no municipality currently called "Washington" (go ahead and look for it), it exists in name only. As such, "Washington" is a ceremonial name, and is not a city within or coterminous with the District of Columbia. Please do not revert the edit again. -98.218.224.177 14:54, 3 September 2008 (EDT)

All hair splitting aside, I like the text as you have left it—less verbose. --Peter ^Talk 16:46, 3 September 2008 (EDT)

My mistake; I should have checked beforehand, although I never would have guessed that the U.S. doesn't have a capital city. LtPowers 18:35, 3 September 2008 (EDT)

Well, the U.S. does have a capital city, in the general meaning of the word, it's just called a "District" instead. I may certainly be splitting hairs as Peter says above, but I think it's important that resources like this are precise. Best, 98.218.224.177 18:45, 3 September 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Districts section

Discussion moved to Talk:Washington, D.C./Districts discussion