BaancBlog

Mari, over at InShaw, has a bit of a screed on the lockdown today. Every four years, it's sort of cute. Weather is cold, you don't really want to get out and walk around (if you can). And the various authorities actually try to tell people what's happening and in some cases try to make life easier on the the inhabitants. (Cue the Prisoners Chorus from Fidelio. (If you liked that, you'll like the Chorus from Nabucco.)) The templates must be in place: How many police, of given caliber, to secure each of the corners, the memos which prescribe the proscriptions, and probably fill-in-the-blanks press releases.

Neighborhood consideration and "community policing" are noticeably absent this round.

The editor suspects that the Inaugurations were a blueprint for this and probably many more such lockdowns in the future. Outside of Ninth Street, most of the other streets are residential or semi-residential. It's much easier to lockdown our neighborhood than the World Bank area, what with the commercial losses, high priced law firms being inconvenienced, and lobbyists complaining on the hill.

This isn't Fenty's problem. It's obviously much higher than that.

The editor didn't go ballistic on the siting of the new convention center for a number of reasons. Among those was that he thought it was a fait accompli (since confirmed), and that it made sense to have the convention center downtown, making Washington a pleasant place to have a convention. He didn't think it would, per se, speed up gentrification, which was already happening, and would have progressed much further if the government intentions for the land had not been so clouded to oursiders in the early 1990's.

If they do this again in the near future, it means that it's a mistake to live here.