The gap between the rich and the poor is bigger in D.C. than in any of the nation’s other major cities, and residents are feeling it. Fortunately, their choices in Tuesday’s primaries will bring attention to the importance of equitable economic development.
Current Mayor Anthony Williams and the District’s City Council have been credited with a complete economic revival in the city. As D.C.’s Chief Financial Officer in the ‘90s, Williams rescued the city from bankruptcy. As mayor, he has maintained a balanced budget and overseen an economic revival.
Eastern D.C., however, hasn’t seen much of that revival. Even as numbers like real estate purchases and retail sales indicate prosperity in the District, a D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute study found that in 2003, average income fell and poverty actually increased.
According to DCFPI Executive Director Ed Lazere, this conception of prosperity is held by current council members Kevin Chavous, Sandy Allen and Harold Brazil, who were all defeated on Tuesday.
Even as they have given lip service to poverty issues, Chavous, Allen and Brazil have backed bringing a publicly-financed stadium to D.C.. It would cost more than $400 million, money that would be better spent supplying D.C. public schools that do not have books.
After Tuesday, however, we can be a little more optimistic about the fate of the District’s poor. In Ward 7, voters brought in Vincent Gray, the former executive director of Covenant House Washington, a national Catholic-based charity that provides services to homeless youth and runaways.
Brazil’s replacement, Kwame Brown, has spent the last several years working to increase opportunities for minority-owned businesses in the District. According to Lazere, this experience has given him an understanding of prosperity that centers on poverty reduction and job growth.
Finally and most notably, D.C.’s controversial former Mayor Marion Barry will return to District politics, replacing Ward 8 representative Allen. Barry is one of the most loved politicians in Eastern D.C., remembered for creating jobs and expanding services for the poor. While it was under Barry that the city went bankrupt, Lazere said that the city council is unlikely to start over-spending simply because of his return.
“I do think there will be a stronger voice for low-income residents I don’t think that will happen in a fiscally irresponsible way,” Lazere said.
The changing of three seats in the Council will bring new energy to the District government and if Major League Baseball doesn’t act before January, the Council may have another $400 million to work with as well.
