July 9, 2008
Are We a Town, or a City?
The new August issue of Outside magazine ranks the "20 Best Towns in America," and this year, Washington, D.C. was given top honors, coming in as #1 on the list. The District was honored for the turnaround neighborhoods like Adams Morgan, Chinatown and U Street have seen in the last decade -- indeed, the list focuses on communities that have seen "revivals," and also includes places like Chattanooga, TN, Ithaca, NY, and Crested Butte, CO.
Now, we're not ones to argue with anyone who wants to say that D.C. is the best -- we love our city and wouldn't bother obsessing over every small detail about what life is like here for residents if we didn't think it was a great place to live. But we can't help but notice that most of the other "towns" on this list are much smaller than the District. With a population within the city limits of only about 580,000, we know D.C. itself is a much smaller city than Philadelphia, New York, or Chicago. But the D.C. metro area all together still has the 9th largest metropolitan population in the country, with more than 5.3 million people living in the region. Is it really fair to compare the District of Columbia with someplace like Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with its population of 20,600? Would you ever refer to Washington, D.C. as a "town," instead of a "city"?
A list of the top 10 best towns from Outside magazine's August, 2008 issue is after the jump. The full article isn't available online yet, but you can download a pdf.
1. Washington, D.C.
2. Chattanooga, Tenn.
3. Ogden, Utah
4. Portsmouth, N.H.
5. Tacoma, Wash.
6. Ithaca, N.Y.
7. Louisville, Ky.
8. Eureka, Calif.
9. Crested Butte, Colo.
10. Columbia, Mo.
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Town
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Wow. Well, they've sold at least one more copy of their magazine. And they didn't even have to put another picture of Malia Jones on the cover.
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Colony
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By the classic (English) definition of the two terms, we are a city. We have a cathedral. It's quite large.
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That will show those fu**ers in Crested Butte, CO to mess with us.
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Is DC really that much bigger than Louisville?
There's too much crime in DC for it to be a town, hence its a city.
Like a really expensive version of Camden, NJ!
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Is this really an honor? DC beating Chattanooga, TN for "best town in America" is like a machine gun beating a slingshot for "best offensive weapon."
This makes no sense. I'm pretty sure Crested Butte, Colorado doesn't have a subway.
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Louisville has a population of just over 700,000, so technically it's larger than the District, but if you factor in NoVa and Southern Maryland, then we're definitely bigger.
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Oooh, I love that "Make the Move, Live the Dream" tagline on the cover. Does the 1/2 block stumble from Chadwick's to Loehman's in Friendship Heights qualify as being Outside? That's about as outdoorsy as I get this time of year.
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Crusted butt... heheheheheheh
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FYI Sommer: Southern Maryland generally refers to Charles/Calvert/St. Mary's counties, which are more suburbs of Annapolis than DC. I know you meant to refer to Montgomery and Prince George's (as an inverse to Northern Virginia); but these can only be uniformly referred to as "DC-metro Maryland."
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How many mugging/shootings does it take to be a city? Or is it number of bikers/pedestrians run over? Guess we better step it up people.. It's probably our schools that are holding us back...
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sommer: louisville is only that large because it recently merged with its surrounding county to form a unitary government. so that 700,000 includes the real city and a hell of a lot of suburbia, exurbia, and farmland.
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the whole thing seems a hell of a lot like comparing apples and oranges. you have small college cities (columbia, ithaca), you have medium sized cities (louisville, washington, tacoma), you have crested butte, for god's sake. you're all over the map here, literally and figuratively. i'm going to have to read the damn article now to figure out why the disparate list...
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"Louisville has a population of just over 700,000"
Which came as a result of the merger with Jefferson County. This type of transaction is why census records based on anything but metropolitan area are total bunk. That's how a podunk city like San Antonio can get to be in the top ten.
As for the proper nomenclature for the District, I prefer Protectorate
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Actually, according to the US Census Bureau, Louisville had in 2006 an estimated population of 554,496 (nearly twice as large as their 2000 Census results) while DC was estimated to be at 581,530 people then.
And again, according to the Census Bureau, according to July 1, 2006 population estimates (small PDF), DC is the 24th most populous city in the US. I think it's just plain odd they call us a town.
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are rents this outrageous in the boondocks (towns)? i sincerely hope not.
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What VJ just said. Annapolis doesn't have any suburbs, but yes, southern maryland and D.C. metro maryland are two unrelated things.
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ok, i'm going to live-comment my reading of this article here...
right in the first two paragraphs, they call us "the D.C." and say that barry was mayor for 8 years. time to do some fact-checking there, outside.
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they use warren brown for their go-to quote?!? what is this, 2004??
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the "capitol riverfront 'hood"? maybe someday, but for now, that's just a BID, folks.
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the bike sharing program is already up and running, folks. outside magazine says so.
so where's my damn pee-wee herman look-alike bike?
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cork is on U street! great falls is in the district! AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!
fact check!
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Hard to understand their criteria. According to wikipedia D.C. has a 2007 pop of 588,292 inside the city limits. Using the same wiki source, Seattle has a 2007 pop of 592,800. So if D.C. missed the pop cutoff to be a city why didn't Seattle? I can tell you for damn sure that Seattle doesn't take a backseat to Portsmouth, Tacoma, etc.
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they give population stats for the city, but give employment stats for the whole metro area (thus making U of MD, inova health, and lockheed martin some of our biggest employers). why not give pop. stats for the whole metro then. apples and oranges, folks!
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alright, katie arnold (author of the DC section of the article), you are officially on my "bad writer" list.
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I always find it strange that, for the most part, when people refer to "DC" they are actually referring to the DC "Metro" Area, and not DC proper.
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what's the population inside the beltway, i wonder?
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MacDad - that's probably because if you tell someone you're from Colesville, MD they have no idea where the hell that is but if you say "I'm from DC" you get a glimmer of recognition.
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common_tater: we could start by adding up arlington county, the cities of falls church and alexandria, DC, and the various cities in PG and montgomery counties (like capital heights, district heights, hyattsville, takoma park, the chevy chases) and see what that number is
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prefecture?
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IMGoph, I'm pretty sure if you added up all the census figures for all of the municipalities within the the beltway, the figure you would get would be a complete mess.
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LOL @Homesick!!
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These lists are always completely useless. They pick places/things based upon a forced variety so that it appeals to a larger audience. For instance, if they were to try to come up the top ten biking trails, even if an objective measure would put all those trails in Northern California (or something, I really don't know where the biking mecca is) they'd still end up including some crap trail in North Carolina (or whatever) to give the article a broader appeal.
This is because people don't look at these lists to help them make a decision, they look at them to validate a decision they've already made.
Frankly I wouldn't be surprised to find that Outside has a high subscription rate in DC. Nothing sells magazines like a good dollop of flattery.
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I always thought DC was downtown DC (maybe a 10 block radius around Metro Center) and the rest of the entire metro region was Silver Spring.
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Hamlet? Burgh?
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Our Nation's Capitol: strategic hamlet or jerkwater burg? You make the call.
I've always thought of DC as an quaintly overpriced culvert with all the charm of an open ditch latrine in midsummer. But at least most of the hookers still have teeth and you can bang strangers in alleys with impugnity.
That said I'd go with "New York's butterface younger sister who still puts out after the bar closes."
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DC may not be a 'large' city, like NY or Chicago, but it is certainly not a 'town'....
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Maybe if they intended to highlight a certain neighborhood, like Adams Morgan or something, as a "town" within the city, that would be one thing, but the author is obviously just an idiot.
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I always thought we were a canton like those money grubbing Swiss. Sure they're neutral, for a fee.
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I think Reid is right, main purpose of this list....TO SELL MAGAZINES.
I have a bet this is the same list as the "Top 10 the Cities Where Outdoor Needs Dramatically Increase Readership or the Editor is Fired".
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Non-issue. DC is as much a city as Seattle and Louisville are. They just wanted a catch-all and, in a decidedly half-assed manner, settled on "town." Imagine the outrage and apoplexy on here if they'd called Crested Butte or Eureka a "city."
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@IMGOPH
It's worse. While you could try to make a case that she was only talking about Barry's last two post-jail terms, her reference to Congress "taking charge" in 1995 happened early in his return trip undercut that. And besides, they didn't "take charge" of the city, they instituted the financial control board. Home rule was not suspended.
And money didn't start to pour in in 2001, it started well before that.
And the run from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial is only two miles, not three (maybe she was thinking about kilometers?).
I'll forgive the Great Falls statement. She didn't say that it was in the District and she did say it was "upriver".
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New York, New York is a "helluva town" and Bob Dylan had "hard times in New York Town."
Chicago is a "toddling town" and Frank Sinatra's "kind of town."
So yeah, I'm fine with calling DC a town.
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Hmm - I always thought that the District of Columbia was...a district.
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But Whitman22, Chicago and NY don't suffer from crippling inferiority complexes. New Yorkers can say they live in a "town so nice, they named it twice" and nobody gets their panties in a wad.
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Why are we discussing whether DC is a city or a town when the real issue is that DC shouldn't top any "Best ____ in America" list. Well unless it is a Best Town for PhD's to work at Starbucks, for Demonic Drivers, for Interns to hook up with older men for free rent etc.
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whitman22: No points for the relative ease with which "town" can be rhymed. No clever songwriter wants to make do with "pity" or "gritty" (though "pretty" isn't half bad).
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i consider town and city to be synonyms. call me crazy.
YEAH LOUISVILLE WOO!
on that vein, louisville's population was WAY smaller before the city/county merger. before the merger, my mailing address was in louisville but i didn't actually live in city limits...it got very confusing.
and yeah, it's a pretty great city/town/whatever you want to call it.
also, i couldn't open the link! stupid internets.
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reid: you're right on all counts. i guess i just scraped the surface of the craptitude of that article, eh?
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Technically speaking, aside from Crested Butte, Colorado, every place on the list is a city.
And what turnaround are they talking about in Adams Morgan?
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So... the list of "Best non-sovereign city-states in America" would have been really short, then?
1. Washington, DC.
2. ... ... ...
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The Shire?
There's always been a Monkey living under the hill in Monkey-End.
And there always will be.
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I wonder if anyone from Outdoor Magazine has been to Tacoma, Washington. It's the western version of Camden, NJ. The place smells, there's shit to do besides one half decent concert venue, and it's a pretty broke ass place. Yes, there's a lot nearby but Seattle and Portland have pretty much the same attractions while being considerably nicer.
Also, while chimneys from coal power plants and turn of the century factories make for particularly glowing sunsets, Louisville is a fucking dump.
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hater
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MSto: Seriously!
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DC is a city. No ifs ands or buts.
However, the line is not always that clear. When I worked in Michigan we would often debate if Jackson (population of about 35,000) was a town (no media market, no major employers, no major industry, people commuter to other places to work, etc) or a city (downtown office buildings, gangs, high crime rate, urban decay, large downtown train station). In either case, Jackson won't be on anyone's "best ____ to live in" list anytime soon.
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I'd have to say DC manages to have aspects of both.
We are like a small town because....
In real cities EMTs don't stop treating transgendered people when they figure out that woman has a peni.
In real cities racism isn't institutionalized and pandered to like it is in DC.
In real cities two or three pissy neighbors can't close down a club or restaurant that the vast majority of the neighborhood likes.
In real cities the local corner pub has excellent food and good service.
We are like a city (albeit a crappy city) because:
We've accepted that heinously high crime rates are, well, acceptable as 'the norm'.
We have a crapton of ridiculously expensive restaurants.
Our cost of living is quite high.
We embrace the stupidity of warehousing public housing recipients in giant housing complexes.
We have a whole bunch of annoying people like me living here.
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hillvada: without the prison down there anymore, jackson's just a rest stop on i-94.
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IMGoph: Oh bollocks. Everyone knows the Cascades are the heart and soul of jacktown. The prison was just for tourists.
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I met my love by the National Mall
Dreamed a dream by the C&O canal
Kissed a girl by the Vietnam wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
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bethesdaist: great song!
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I'm just afraid this debate will lead to a comeback of Jefferson Starship..."We built this township on crack and hos"
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Is DC a "city"?
I don't know...is the bear Catholic?
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For the record, the Washington (DC-MD-VA-WV) statistical area had a July 1, 2005, estimated population of 5,214,666 spread over a 6,028 square mile area according to the Census bureau. This is the most recent metro area figure available.
There is no way to get a good estimate of inside-the-beltway population, but on July 1, 2005, population estimates were:
Alexandria 137,602
Arlington 199,761
Fairfax City 22,030
Fairfax County 1,005,616
Falls Church 10,808
Montgomery 921,016
Prince George's 838,156
Washington 528,049
Total 3,663,038
That means there were another 1,551,628 in the outer suburban areas.
Of the jurisdictions listed above, only Prince George's lost population between 2005 and 2007.
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just read the article....it was pretty bad. however, the author was referring to 8 years of the Bush Administration, not Barry's. Remember, the President lives in our fair city too.....
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Bethesdaist - You forgot the most important verse:
I'm gonna take me a big sharp Glock
Shining steel tempered in the fire
I'll shoot you down like an old skool dealer
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
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IMGoph, I've got a soft spot for the Pogues -- it's called my liver. As for that Glock, Monkey, it could be legally owned soon, which would take some of the fun out of it.
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I thought when I moved from Ithaca to the greater DC Metro area (yeah, I have a congrescritter that can vote) that I was moving to a city. Glad to see I haven't lost the town denomination.
I guess that we graduated from City to Town once we got Wegman's...
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Uh, can we seriously not debate how DC compares in size to Louisville, because there really is no good argument in the first place (and I will bring the statistical smack down if necessary).
And then of course all the annoying I[Heart]NY people will chime in about how any place outside of New York is provincial by default anyways.
I think those Outside Magazine editors are trying to be clever. They have high regards for DC because you can go for a nice, leafy walk in Rock Creek Park and still stop for some crack on your way back home. Bet you can't do that in Ithaca.
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@Hillvada
I totally agree. Jackson is a hole. I just moved from there and I'm pretty sure DC is a city. Hell, I consider the surrounding areas to be cities.
@IMGoph
A rest stop with the best worst golf courses in the state!!
@cactus jack
Tourists/future prisoners?!?!
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Well, you could, once...
TWO ITHACA-BASED DRUG RINGS SHUT DOWN
Interesting: UTNE reader named Ithaca the "Most Enlightened City" back in 1997. Maybe it's part of a coordinated campaign by Ithaca to get all up in DC's bigness...
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It's neither--I say fiefdom. Definately a fiefdom.
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We are definitely a city. We have the second most traversed subway system in the entire country. D.C. proper's population is comparable to Seattle, Boston, Denver, etc. There are only 9 cities in the U.S. with populations more than $1 million. This magazine article is dumb.