This Tuesday District Mayor Vincent Gray addressed city residents in his annual State of the District address. In a speech riddled with sports metaphors, Gray outlined the many successes of his two-year administration and announced his plans for the improvement of this “big-league city.” The mayor’s readiness to face the challenges and embrace the opportunities afforded by the city’s dramatic growth is promising, and we hope that the coming year will be a testament to the leadership his words inspired.
The underlying theme of the address was undoubtedly the District’s economy. Although unemployment remains unacceptably high in lower-income wards, D.C. has committed to a commendable government-private sector economic development strategy that is projected to create 100,000 new jobs and generate $1 billion of additional tax revenue for the District in the next five years. Additionally, the mayor announced a plan to untie the District’s economic growth from federal contractors.
We particularly laud Mayor Gray’s efforts to prevent gentrification in the District. As part of his efforts to preserve affordable housing in a city with a booming real estate sector, he announced his plans to spend $100 million to create 10,000 new units of affordable housing on top of existing initiatives. While D.C. housing advocates are quick to remind us that $100 million will not solve this complex and growing issue, Mayor Gray’s commitment is encouraging.
While the accomplishments of the Gray administration are impressive, most notably the city’s second budget surplus in a row in the context of a weak national and global economy, his speech failed to address many of the problems persistently plaguing District residents.
To begin with, the Mayor did not mention HIV/AIDS in his speech, despite the fact that the overall rate of HIV in D.C. is a whopping 3.2 percent, according to a June 2012 PBS’s Newshour report. While the mayor praised the District’s improved public safety record in terms of homicides, robbery rates have actually increased in the past year. Sexual violence also remains an ugly problem, especially in light of last month’s Human Rights Watch report on the Metropolitan Police Department’s treatment of rape cases. Gray failed to address these concerns.
Although Gray’s successes are numerous, and deserve to be recognized, there obviously remains a lot of work to be done. If the District is really to become the “State of New Columbia,” as Gray asserted in his address, it will have to step up to the plate for all of D.C.’s residents, particularly its most vulnerable.
