Photo by ep_jhu.

Dear reader: did you realize that Washington — a seat of power which houses several large undergraduate universities, and a city whose economy depends quite a bit on young, cheap, driven labor — is an attractive destination for young people? No? Well then, it’s a good thing that the Washington Post is here to remind us!

Today, the paper features a report regarding the city’s census figures, which show that the city has experienced a spike in the number of its residents aged 20-34, who now make up about one-third of the city’s population and are “responsible for almost all of the city’s growth in the past 10 years.” (Of course, the city also saw an increase in the number of sexagenarian residents, but that’s far less fun to write about. Old people don’t go clubbing very often, after all.)

The bulk of the Post’s story is reactions to the city’s burgeoning hipness from experts and residents, which feature several of the same, tired cliches that every young transplanted Washington resident has utilized at one point or another — “I was just going to be here for six months,” “At this point, all of my friends are here and all of my professional network,” and so on — and observations that anyone who’s lived here for more than a week would probably have been able to make on their own. In other words: it’s like a Game Genie for those of you out there playing Gentrification Bingo. Bike lanes! Yoga! Sidewalk cafes! Gay-friendly! Logan Circle! Whole Foods! (Geez, will somebody make sure no one tells Courtland Milloy about this thing?)

After all, nothing quite confirms a city’s status as a mecca of youth culture like a policy wonk from the Brookings Institution claiming in a print newspaper that it’s as “cool” as Boston. But perhaps I’m being a bit too harsh here: after all, anything that leads New York blog commenters to make lame jokes about the Metro has to be worth something.