Why The DC Area Is So Rich It's Poor

A big thanks to MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors and the GEOlayers 3 application

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[SomethingDifferentFilms]

Thank you for watching my video on Why Washington Is America's most expesnive "city". If you would like to see a video on America's most undervalued city please let me know here.

[toasterpastries]

I'm from Fairfax County and the entire DC area has horrendous traffic and cost of living. If you love sitting bumper to bumper for over an hour every day, handing over your entire paycheck to your landlord every month, and simultaneously being overcrowded and heavily atomized/lonely, then move to NOVA

[onyxinvestments]

Quick Edit:
Your maps should definitely include Fairfax County, VA.

[tneal]

It's so odd...You posted this video three days ago but used cost of living data from 2011-2012. It's 2024! Perhaps use more recent data in your next project?

[Dshzzzt]

Only gotta go less than 1 minute into this video to see that the author doesn’t know much about this area.

[mgmrr]

Why do you leave out Fairfax County from your DMV definition? Its much closer to the city and much more developed than Loudoun. There are over 1 million people in Fairfax county alone.

[AnthonyRusso]

I am always super reluctant to take a job in DC. DC proper is too cost prohibitively, but then if I had to commute on the beltway roundtrip 5 days a week I would probably blow my brains out.

[greenstrat]

BTW (at the 4:20 Mark); it's" Silver "Silver Springs".

[kaythia-sh]

I will say, as someone who grew up in North Arlington, and went to high school at a wealthy private school in downtown DC, the city I knew (and wealthy nearby suburbs) *did* represent ultimate prosperity (4:34). The city's well-to-do live a picturesque, semi-small town, idyllic life. It's a pretty world, and possibly one of the most sheltered, utopian places to grow up.

I sat on a bench by the riverfront with a friend a few months ago, and he said that all people deserve to have this world. And that perhaps one day it could be possible. Everyone does deserve that pretty world. It certainly would be nice if they had access to it.

Once you learn the statistics about how some wards have incredibly high six-figure median incomes, and others have median incomes
near to the national poverty rate, it becomes a bit chilling and uncanny how these two worlds can exist side by side in such a small region. I've visited some of the less well-off wards and it's quite saddening. I haven't a clue how to solve it, but it eminently needs to be.

[heathhunt]

Please do Honolulu, Hawaii next. No other US cities can be compared to the cost of living, real estate market, and traffic of Honolulu. Traffic congestion is horrible, especially because there is no expansion of highways due to lack of land, etc, as Hawaii is the only US state being an island.

[bengeertsema]

I live in DC and love it! Cost of living is high but it is nowhere near as high as it is in NYC, SF, or even Boston; that data is 12 years old. It's also cheaper than living in the suburbs where I have also lived because other costs are much lower (transportation, etc). Going out to eat though, that's a different story. You can't find $1 pizza slices in DC like you can in NY.

[Cheyf]

Bought a place in Arlington VA, partner likes the DMV. Good school, parks, always things to do. But hate the traffic and people are mean .

[marciamarsh]

Lived in the DMV for over 30 years, it became America's leading economic powerhouse due to the IT revolution. Almost no one, or very few, saw it coming! Most of us who have lived here for decades only wish we had bought property in Arlington, VA, which, like many other DMV areas, did, YES, go through a slump! Yes, remember?

[tymonday]

Thank you for including Howard amongst the District’s outstanding schools of higher learning. HBCU love.

[kennethduckworth]

I biked to work everyday- got in my exercise and to work with little to no stress. And I preferred a smaller house. My house in Silver Spring is worth about $500K, and can walk to the metro.

[Timidor]

On the up side, DMV wealth is more widely spread across a large upper middle class than most cities with more billionaires.

Also - you could have found a Beltway video when talking about the Beltway rather than Constitution Ave.

[ThaOriginal_Q]

4:02 Why is fairfax County left off this map when it has a bigger impact on dmv wealth than pg County? Tysons, mclean, Vienna, fairfax, reston, Herndon, great falls, etc all drive that hh income up.

[AR-jnre]

Great video! The DC metro area is an amzing place, they just need to focus on affordable housing and improving public transit!

[eduardoalcazar]

What happened to Fairfax county? How do you not include the most populous county adjacent to DC that actually has a significant portion of the beltway running through it? That's like making a map of New England and leaving out Massachusetts lol

[Hymie-gtgv]

D.C. is hood AF. Don't let the beautiful architecture fool you.