Every Sunday, DCist runs first person editorial pieces about life in this city of ours. If you’ve got something to say, we’d be happy to listen. This week, Ian Manheimer contributes his thoughts about living in DC.

A couple weeks ago DCist asked blogger Matthew Yglesias a question that speaks to the way so many residents build conceptual framework for living in DC. From the interview:

You’re a New Yorker, and some people in D.C. pretty much think of New Yorkers as always comparing the city to D.C. Do you tend to do that, or do you think the district has advantages over NYC?

Yglesias answers that he prefers DC, much to the delight of lifelong district dwellers. But Yglesias doesn’t say he left NYC for DC because the former is cooler – in fact, he says New York was too cool. This response quietly hints at the ways DC draws its young and hip. It is people who are looking to fall out of the cultural rat race for one with cubicle walls. Not to be critical – college educated Washingtonians like to work (and talk about work). But it is in my weakest moments, tanning under the fluorescent rays of my office, that I find myself pining for my last home in New Orleans.

I returned to the Crescent City last weekend and braced for the worst. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was on my flight down. He seemed pretty cool. This put me at ease. But when I got a chance to look around, I was no longer at ease. The areas hit worse look the same as the day the city was drained into nearby Lake Pontchartrain. There is too much uncertainty to start cleaning up. Mounds of rubble stand untouched like surrealist sculptures. People do not want to waste their time and effort rebuilding an area that may soon be zoned into a park or wetland.