It's the last week in town for my friends Genevieve and Emily capping off the traditional late-summer exodus and consequent need to try and make some new friends somewhere. This got me thinking; I always tend to assume that DC is unusually transient in this particular way -- lots of people leaving town every summer and lots of new people coming in every fall -- but do I have any reason to think that's the case? In retrospect, I do not. Certainly, there's a lot of transience. But DC also just happens to be the only place I've lived during my time in the peak-transience age bracket. For all I know, LA or New York has even more churn.
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Goodbye to all That
30 Aug 2006 01:53 pm
Comments (15)
Well, as someone who has lived in the City for the last 15 years, I'll say that I thought it was a transient town also, for at least the first couple of years. But that's because, for the most part, the people I spent the most time with were from somewhere else. They had come here to get a graduate degree, or work in politics or law. But now that I've been here, that's not so. I have a lot of friendships with folks who have grown their lives here, and even grew up here. These folks don't leave during the summertime, and talk about the different sectors of the City with a familiarity that shows they KNOW it. Those who stay come to love the city as their appreciation grows. For example, if you can make your way around Rock Creek Park, you're halfway there.
FWIW, I found DC to be a fairly transient city, too. I went through 18 roommates in my first 2.5 years there. After about 3 to 4 years there, it seemed like I was going to farewell parties every weekend. And after 7 years there, I felt like a dinosaur -- practically nobody I knew from my first year was left.
Many of my friends & acquaintances who left DC after a few years stuck in their next town for much longer. (That's evidence of nothing, though, since it could be that your first few years out of college are the most transient.) Plus, friends out of college who moved to other big cities -- LA, NY, SF -- seemed to stay put for longer.
My experience with DC has been that most people seem to come and stay somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 years, give or take, and then they either leave or stay for a fairly substantial amount of time. As a result, I've also noticed that my group of friends tends to turn over almost completely about every three years (I've lived here a little over six years: There was huge turnover in late 2000 and early 2001 with the administration, then I made new friends, but basically everyone I made friends with was gone three years later, and I'm just going through a final turnover with the last of the set of friends who came in as the first group was leaving--the good thing being that some people who left in the 2001 and first cycle are now returning.) I, of course, am here seemingly for the duration.
I've assumed it's a function of age and DC being, in it's own way, a desirable city. Salt Lake City shows a similar pattern among the post-college set. People are drawn from all over for the recreation, but either leave after 2-5 years or settle here for good.
McManus: "I don't know to what degree Boston is really a college town."
Did Bob just make a great "This is Spinal Tap" reference?
How banal. Why does the liberal blogosphere waste bandwidth in this way? Who cares about your late-summer exodus? I'd rather hear about your bowel movements.
Matt, your renovated Blog is already a success!! Soon, you'll need registered users and a rating system for comments.
DC functions as a kind of unofficial grad school, it seems, which would account for some of the transience among those blown, like Mary Poppins, with the political wind. (Not to mention the fact that if/when pols get turfed out, their staff often go with them.)
There are certainly other cities where it's more or less impossible to make the transition from medium-term living to long-term root-planting. They're the ones where going from rent to mortgage is most difficult.
Please, please, please change the font, and for the love of god drop the full-justify. Please?
I grew up in DC during the 70's. In my experience, it was a very transient place. A friend's father would lose an election, or a new adminstration would come in and someone lost his/her political appointment, and boom -- the whole family's on its way back to Arkansas.
Actually, the facts don't back up all the anecdotes posted here. DC has a very typical level of in- and out-migration. We're more transient than the nation as a whole but, basically, we're about the same as Kansas City or St. Louis.
The data below is from the Census. It shows the percentage of residents living in the same house in 1995 and 2000 (pct age 5+ in year 2000)
USA 54.1%
Washington, DC 49.9%
Illinois 56.8%
-Chicago 54.4%
Indiana 55.0%
- Bloomington, IN 25.9%
Massachusetts 58.5%
- Boston, MA 47.8%
- Cambridge, MA 38.7%
Missouri 53.6%
- Kansas City 49.8%
- St. Louis 50.7%
New York state 61.8%
-Bronx, NY 60.5%
-Brooklyn 62.9%
-Manhattan 29.4%
-Queens 61.8%
Ohio 57.5%
-Cincinatti 46.1%
-Cleveland 55.8%
-Columbus 41.7%
Click on the link under "b" to get more Census data.
It shows the percentage of residents living in the same house in 1995 and 2000
Different house != different city.
I think the question is not so much total in- or outflows, but transience within a certain class/group of people. I think that for young wonks DC is even more transient than NYC is for, say, young people working in the publishing industry.
Belle waring, you're absolutely right. I wasn't able to get any information -- although you could probably find it in the Census data somewhere -- that separates out the data on transience by demographic group.
Middle and upper class college educated people in their twenties are extremely transient in DC. There's probably a strong corelation to race as well.
But if you really want to get to meet native Washingtonians, just get involved in local politics. Go to an ANC meeting. Volunteer for a neighborhood group. All the inaccurate assumptions voiced here about transience in DC will be washed away. There's a lot of folks who've lived their entire lives here.
Comments closed September 13, 2006.
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Heads in the Sand
And I don't know to what degree Boston is really a college town, but places like Bloomington IN and Ann Arbor MI where student are a significant portion of the population can be amazing.
I also don't remember if you were in Washington for the change in administrations and parties.
Posted by bob mcmanus | August 30, 2006 6:12 PM