Rome on the Potomac

This article (via) about the culture that is Washington has been popping up regularly in my Facebook feeds for much of the last week or so. Parts of it feel familiar, if occasionally exaggerated in the service of turning a literary phrase. I found the bit about car ownership particularly silly -- you don't have much real need for one if you live in an upper NW neighborhood or a close-in suburb, and finding parking and maneuvring around the #%**T&! circles are generally vastly more trouble than it is worth, unless one finds oneself often taking road trips outside the city. This, not so much an issue in less dense places like Youngstown. Still, such distortions aside, the disconnect between a wealthy government-fueled economy and other areas described therein is troubling.