"Washington DC"

This afternoon in the National Gallery book shop area, I was browsing the various displays while waiting for my companion to arrive. (The companion was struggling past various blockades set up in preparation for handling the crowds at the coming Inauguration.)

There was one nice display of fold-out maps of our nation's capitol, so I picked up the various samples and unfolded them. Now, Washington DC officially comprises some 61 square miles with almost 10,000 people per square mile. However, these foldout maps of "Washington DC" show only a very small part of town: basically, a reader of these maps could conclude that DC is nothing more than the Capitol Mall area plus the immediately surrounding neighborhoods: Capitol Hill to the east; Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights (just barely), Dupont Circle, and Woodley Park to the north; the Waterfront to the south; and Foggy Bottom and Georgetown to the west.

'Tain't so! Petworth, my new neighborhood, isn't even on these maps. I was glad to see the Columbia Heights metro stop, which is the one directly to the south of us, made at least one foldout map. Maybe this is thanks to the new shopping mall and its Target store there.

One of my former coworkers at Gally lives not too far away from me, and she calls the whole area "Midtown." Shades of NYC? Well, Midtown NYC is mostly business--Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, etc. DC's Midtown is largely residential.

Interesting. Also, I checked out my Petworth address' walking score (85), and it's higher than my Georgetown address' (78). One thing that's for sure: Petworth's accessibility to public transportation is much better than Georgetown's. This doubtless helps the walking score, which basically measures how easy is it to live without a car.