by Orrin Konheim

Created on: December 02, 2008   Last Updated: January 08, 2009

Washington DC is unique because it's a city that's at the center of the world yet it sometimes feels like it doesn't have an identity of its own or a very curious one at that.

Washington DC is a company town and that company town is the federal government so like any other kind of town, our workforce is dominated by one kind of person: former political science majors. Their jobs might have different titles, whether it's lobbyist, consultant, contractor, or the prestigious Capitol Hill staffer, but they're basically interchangeable titles which means everyone has the same goal of moving up the policymaking ladder. This makes for an environment of smart and highly ambitious people who, armed with business cards, can turn any social event or chance encounter into a networking opportunity and show little loyalty to any one employer when another opportunity comes along that can send them upwards.

In that sense, Washington is also a very transient place. Our biggest celebritiy, the US president, is only here 4 to 8 years and many of our other people trying to become big name Washingtonians, by way of running for Congress, often talk about how much they dislike us, how not like us they are and how they're going to fix the way we operate when they get here. You can imagine what that does for our civic self-esteem. Ironically, these lawmakers never pay attention to Washington once they get into office. They usually focus their efforts on securing goodies and allocations back to their home states and because Washington DC has no representatives in congress, there exists the irony of the most powerful city in the country becoming its most neglected. Many people don't believe that Washington might be in bad shape when they see the glamour of the monuments, but beyond those monuments are slums and ghettos along with one of the worst school districts in the country.

Like the high-ranking politicians, a lot of people who move here don't see this as the place they will permanently end up. As difficult as it is to find lifelong Washingtonians, it's even harder to find people whose roots are from this town. Because the government bureaucracy was very small before undergoing distinct stages of expansion during the Great Depression, World War II, and the Johnson Administration, much of the present-day Washington metropolitan area was sparsely populated as recently as 40 years ago. Personally, I have encountered very few middle-aged people who went to high school in the Washington area and when I listen to the stories of my neighbor who is in her 70's and grew up in this area, I can appreciate just how much of a rarity she is.

Because of this, it sometimes feels like we have little of our own history or identity of our own. Our recent selection process for what would be on the back of the state quarter. The three finalists for the design had three famous figures that were not just a part of our national history but Washington's history as well: Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglas and Duke Ellington. The stories of these three people didn't take place entirely in Washington, but along with my 70-year old neighbor, they're a small piece of history that is uniquely ours, and if visitors look hard enough they can catch a piece of that history.

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