Washington D.C.s Global Connectivity

P.J. Taylor created what he calls a "Atlas of Hinterlands" of the top 123 Global Cities. These 123 cities are ranked as how closely connected a city is to the global network of cities "connectivity pattern". Each global city is represented with the same size square and is placed on the map in relation to their actual geographic position. As you can see in the Cartogram above, Washington D.C. (WC) is coded with the color black. After the research was completed D.C.'s Statistics came back as follows: Most over-linked city: Chicago (0.079) Most under-linked city: Dubai (-0.069) Specificity of hinterworld: 0.027. Which means it is most closely related to the City of Chicago, and is furthest away from the city of Dubai in relation to the scale of global connectivity. With Madrid having the highest specificity number of .013 D.C. is not far behind with .027 putting it in the top 10 of the entire list. Using the Cartograms key and noting that red represents the cities highest connections you can see that D.C. is highly linked to all of the major cities across North America, which is to be expected. It is also highly internationally linked to Singapore, Kiev, France, and Rio De Janeiro. It is farthest away from international cities like Lisbon, Tapei, Istanbul, and Dubai.

Transportation In The City

Washington D.C. sees 15 million visitors each year. That is a major influx of people to go on top of the 530,000+ population in the D.C. area each day of the year. This makes public transportation a major factor in keeping the city running on a daily basis.The Washington area Metro System is the cities foremost option for public transportation. The Metro System encompasses both the MetroRail and MetroBus services. The Washington Metro is the nations 3rd largest public transportation system in size covering 5 different rail lines and 86 stations. The Different Lines can be seen in the figure to the left. It is also the nations 2nd most used public transportation system carrying over 206 million passengers annually.

Visitors can also use the cities "DC Circulator" bus system. This separate system has 3 separate routes that sees over 2 million riders each year. The Circulator routes are focused for use by tourists in the city because they connect most of the cities major destinations including Union Station, Georgetown University, The National Mall and The Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
Apart from public transportation inside the city, the greater Washington area is home to 3 different Airports: Washington Dulles International Airport. Ronald Reagan National Airport and Baltimore/Washington International Airport. Between the 3 of them they see over 60 million passengers each year with over 700 weekly departures to 29 different international destinations.

Washington D.C. Sees Major Increase in 2007 Tourism Stats.

Members from Destination D.C., the official tourism corporation for Washington D.C. reported the tourism statistics from the entire year of 2007 this august. The numbers show that D.C. saw 16.2 million visitors in 2007 a 7% increase from 2006. This trend increased the overall spending of the tourism industry to $5.54 billion dollars, creating 600 million in revenue from sales tax alone proving that D.C.s tourism industry is one of the most powerful around the nation.
William Hanbury the president of Destination D.C. cited international visitors and business travelers as major reasons in the boost of tourism revenue for the year of 2007. He went on to explain that because of the revenue in sales tax D.C. households saved nearly 2,400 dollars in a tax burden that otherwise would have fallen on them. Specifically business travel rose by 16.7%, and believed to be because of the weakening nation currency international travel rose by 13%. Lastly, according to Global Insight, a international research firm Washington D.C. ended 2007 as the 8th most popular international destination.

Source: www.destinationdc.com

Behind The City - Original Plans

In 1790 then President George Washington commissioned three men: Daniel Carrol, Thomas Johnson and David Stuart to create the nations capitol the personally handpicked area on the Potomac river in between Virginia and Maryland to be known as the District of Columbia in which the nations capitol city, Washington, would sit. The area can be seen in the figure to the right. It is important to note that Washington D.C. is not a state, nor is it a piece of either the state of Maryland or Virginia. The district of Columbia is a separate entity which encompasses the city of Washington, Arlington and Alexandria.

French born civil engineer Pierre L'Enfant was picked to plan the creation of what would become the worlds first planned capitol city. L'Enfant served as part of the army core of engineers during the American Revolution as well as was part of re-designing New York's city hall. His original plan now housed in the Library of Congress can be seen in the figure to the left. With progress not going at the rate President Washington desired L'Enfant fell out of favor with the President and his partner Andrew Ellicot took over to continue the plan while adding a few changes. The diagonal roads were left as part of the plan to create "nodes" for the creation of national monuments to someday sit in the open areas.

By the time Abraham Lincoln became president the nations capitol planners had struggled to continue with the over arching plan of placing monuments among the federal buildings throughout Washington. those areas had now turned into bad areas where poverty had taken over and the cities image was undesirable to say the least. The "City Beautiful" plan was enacted with the creation of the Washington monument and the Nations capitol that we know today.

The City Beautiful plan lead the to Senate appointed McMillan Commission in the early 1900s. This commission went back to the original ideas of L'Enfant and attempted to follow the European cities of Paris and London. Major pieces of this plan was to remove the slums around the capitol area of the city and replace them with new monuments to historic figures of the nations past. although many projects were completed during this time, the creation of the national mall and Lincoln monument in 1922 has said to have been the completion of this process.

Why is the history of the city important to the Washington D.C. we know today?

Without so many people pouring in resources and time into the creation of the nations capitol city there is no way it could be the tourism hot spot that it is today. From the very beginning with President Washington the idea was held that our nations capitol had to be a testament to the nation, a place where one could see the nations major accomplishments in its architecture and monuments. this idea was held through President Lincoln all the way to the McMillan commission.