Living in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., is a beautiful city with gorgeous architecture and a vibrant cultural life that also just happens to be the nation’s capital. Of course, Washington, D.C., is a company town — the company being the American government — but only a quarter of Washington, D.C., residents are federal employees, with the biggest employers being the major hospitals and universities. Washington, D.C., is an exemplar of urban planning, thanks to the vision of military engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant. L’Enfant’s plan symbolically put the people in charge by placing Congress, and not the White House, at the pinnacle of the city, with D.C.’s wide boulevards radiating out from the “People’s House” on Capitol Hill. L’Enfant also laid out the National Mall, which stretches for more than two miles from Capitol Hill to the Potomac River, creating a public space for marches, monuments, and museums.