Report a Comment

While I agree the LivingSocial thing to be a waste, and your goal is laudable in a macro sense. It is completely unrealistic in a real world sense.

You also seem to be mixing and matching facts to support your thesis.

For example.

“The District didn't just suddenly become an attractive place for talented young people to live”

Yes actually, it did. DC had a world class (ok, I am giggling matching world class and “metro” but on paper it is) transportation system for 25 years before the young started moving to town.

DC has had a the same world class universities for 50-100 years or more and yet it wasn’t until ten years ago that fewer people started leaving the District for VA or MD than staying.

And lastly, we can’t discount the “Obama effect”. I don’t know how many articles I’ve read, news reports I’ve watched claiming that President Obama made public service “cool” again, nor can I count the number of young 20 something’s that I’ve met in the past 4 years who moved here to work in government because of it.

“The payoff from these investments is that DC has experienced the largest domestic population growth of any state”

No, it didn’t. DC’s population growth between 2000-2010, while impressive in a local sense because it was the first time the District had actually added population rather than shed it for the first time in ~40 years, but for that decade we ranked 34th in the nation. DC did take the cake in one year growth from 2010-2011, but that had absolutely nothing to do with young people flocking to DC because of metro, inclusionary zoning or our streetcar program. It had everything to do with DC being immune to the recession and the jobs mecca of the nation.

"Location subsidies, is practiced by states who can't offer a 21st century workforce because they haven't invested in one"

Really? I had no idea VA and MD offered so many successful subsidies is because their workforces are subpar uneducated backwater hillbillies.

The truth of the matter is this. Subsidies crafted in certain ways and for select businesses pay off in massive dividends. VA and MD have been proving that at the Districts expense for decades. The District, with it’s 50th ranked public schools, its drastically higher office lease rates, and higher corporate and income tax rates has to try even harder to convince companies to come to DC rather than our suburban neighbors.

This subsidy for LivingSocial is ill crafted and useless (and can we stop calling it a “tech” company, I get daily grocery deals emailed to me from Giant, that doesn’t make them a tech company), but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t compete for the same business MD and VA get.

by Subsidy on Jun 21, 2012 12:22 pm • link • report