Boomtown USA
On a warm blustery afternoon earlier this week I was inching my car along the beltway surrounding Washington, DC, struck by the parallel with Silicon Valley. Not today’s Silicon Valley where, sadly, even my rush-hour commute is abnormally swift, but the Internet Valley of the late 1990s boom. In Metro Washington today, construction cranes are everywhere, restaurants full, the highways jammed with shiny late-model cars, and the streets swarming with well-dressed pedestrians bustling about purposefully.
However, once you walk into a meeting it becomes clear that you are not in Kansas, or Northern California, anymore.
Silicon Valley is about getting things done: starting a new company, marketing a new product, prototyping a new technology, delighting customers with the Next Big Thing ahead of the competition. There is a sense of urgency and productive tension in every meeting. Every attendee walks out sweating a list of specific action items.
Around my office, beat the clock is the name of the game.
In Washington, the meetings are friendly but gauzy. One is reminded of cotton candy: substantial-appearing to the eye, sweet tasting, but melting away to nothing much in moments. Seemingly everyone agrees with the assertion that the bureaucratic roadblock occasioning your visit is ridiculous—including the people who earn their daily bread in the roadblock construction and maintenance business. And nobody, it seems, has any ability to help you in a direct and meaningful fashion. The governmental locomotive, apparently, has no individually actuated brake; slowing the engine or switching tracks is a matter for “consensus,” and boy is that guy hard to find.
In Washington, watch the clock is the name of the game, and it sure seems profitable, at least for some.
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Feb '11
Re: Boomtown USA
Indeed, considerable affluence here in the DC area, and a lot of liberals and "progressives" are voting their pocketbooks, whether they admit it to themselves or not: paying higher taxes can be very profitable.
Jan '11
Re: Boomtown USA
Government is not a locomotive; it is, rather, a cow standing athwart the tracks staring at you with bemused puzzlement at your impatient insistence to actually get somewhere and do something productive.
Nov '10
Re: Boomtown USA
Ronald Reagan said, “So there be no misunderstanding. I don’t intend to get rid of government, only to make it work for the people. To make it a government that stands by our side, and not riding on our backs."
Washington is now in the hands of people who prefer riding on our backs to standing by our side.
Nov '10
Re: Boomtown USA
Funny you should mention this phenomenon this way: While it's true that the housing starts dropped off considerably--well, really, came to a complete stop, at least out here in the outer 'burbs--in the wake of the "financial crisis," my husband and I commented at the time that restaurants and shops continued to buzz right along. I'm sure that many small businesses went under, and I don't mean to minimize their losses, but...I certainly didn't see it. This area is and has always been fairly well insulated from economic downturns. Again, housing has been a different matter.
Mar '11
Re: Boomtown USA
For all of our commitment to diversity, I can't help but notice how we have replaced traditional racial/ethnic/gender distinctions with class and professional distinctions. And that the people who populate these new tribes have increasingly little to do with each other, such that when they meet, you can feel the awkwardness, the head-tilting that occurs as everyone realizes that we speak the same language, but we don't understand each other. I have found ( I've spent 20 years working in Silicon Vallely) that this disconnect is most pronounced when I attend meetings with my city government (I live in San Jose). And while everybody dresses the same and carries the same professional affect, the gap between the Let's Get A Plan Together and Assign Some Action Items ( Valley workplace protocols) and the We Need to Study This Some More (city government employees) is as big as the Grand Canyon. These are professions working off of very different playbooks, and it's sad, because what happens is government becomes culturally--as well as structurally--more and more divorced from the people it's supposed to represent.
Aug '10
Re: Boomtown USA
To be fair to the people who earn their daily bread in the roadblock construction and maintenance business, there are plenty of political staffers and/or civil servants who are genuinely frustrated when they meet with constituents who have genuine problems with the federal government that should be easy to fix, but which the staffer and/or civil servant has absolutely zero ability or authority to resolve.
The difference, of course, is that the political staffer is (ideally) only employed in that position temporarily. Hopefully the up-close view of the absurdity of government is an impetus for them to get out of the capital city quagmire and become a more productive citizen. (Maybe I'm dreaming?)
On the other hand, the civil servant has the job for life so those pangs of frustration probably wear off pretty quickly.
Aug '10
Re: Boomtown USA
FYI: The three counties with the highest per-capita income in the nation are suburbs of Washington D.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States
FYI: In Canada, the top three "census metropolitan areas" (we don't have counties) are:
So, it seems the only way to beat the civil servants these days is with petro-dollars.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/FAMIL107A-eng.htm
Edited on May 25, 2011 at 1:24pmJun '10
Re: Boomtown USA
Imperial Rome must have been very similar. The place needs a good sacking by barbarians from fly-over country. Maybe headed by a warrior princess?
Re: Boomtown USA
Misthiocracy, I reluctantly come down on the dreaming side. My observation is that many of the former staffers and bureaucrats now earn very hefty incomes--much higher than that of the typical Silicon Valley entrepreneur--helping us outside-the-beltway types navigate the swamp.
By the way, these folks are typically smart, charming and effective at what they do. And to a certain degree the function is an absolute necessity. But "at the margin," as economists are fond of saying, I think we are well beyond the point of diminishing returns.
Dec '10
Re: Boomtown USA
I wish we could get conservatives, of either party, to commit to staffing that resides in the Congressional District, or the State. Private enterprise operates just fine with distributed work forces. I have teamed with others, spread all over the country, to create entire Environmental Impact Statements (massive documents with diverse input) and it's routine.
It removes staffers from the lobbying frenzy and ensures that the staffers live the lives of the constituents. Both K-Street lobbyists and the lobbyists for the hungry bureaucracies would have to diffuse their efforts over the nation, diluting their influence.
As it stands, both the lobbyists and the staffers attend the same PTA meetings, but not ours. Next administration, they switch roles, but they never move away. They never live in the nation they dictate.
Edited on May 25, 2011 at 2:53pmJan '11
Re: Boomtown USA
George
Thanks for the description of the Washington DC Beltway.
It's nice to know that construction cranes are everywhere, restaurants are full and the highways are jammed.
The recession will end in America when it begins in the Beltway.
Jun '10
Re: Boomtown USA
I want that on a bumper-sticker!
Edited on May 26, 2011 at 8:13amMay '10
Re: Boomtown USA
The malignant tumor that kills you also consumes more and more of the blood and nutrients as it grows at the expense of it's host....