The Pandemic-Driven Business Closures, Right Next to the Acela Class

Comparing Washington, D.C., and its surrounding suburbs to the luxurious Capitol of Panem in The Hunger Games has been in vogue for a while, and there’s no doubt that because the business of the capital city is government, the business of the capital city never really experiences a slowdown. And year after year, annual lists of the highest-income counties in the country usually include Loudoun, Fairfax, Arlington, and Stafford in Virginia, and Howard County and Montgomery County in Maryland. Yes, Washington, D.C., and its sprawling suburbs are largely insulated from national trends in the economy.

But the Covid-19 pandemic hurt the economies of every community, and the slow-to-reopen capital region may have suffered a little worse than the average county. In a year, Washington, D.C., lost at least 375 businesses. The city’s unemployment rate is still at 6 percent — compared to 3.6 percent nationally, ranking dead last, behind 50th-ranked New Mexico at 5.3 percent. Washington lost population during the pandemic, mostly young professionals who could most easily afford to move somewhere else.

When I arrived at Union Station today for the first time since before the pandemic, the massive train station looked like a ghost town in certain sections.

Most, but not all, of the big chains — McDonalds, Starbucks, Au Bon Pain — made it. It was the small unique businesses that didn’t make it. No doubt Union Station businesses had their economic troubles before the pandemic, but not having any travelers passing through for several months had to be a deathstroke. And it looks like retailers — already feeling pressure from online sales — are reluctant to move back in to Union Station.

Back in 2017, Salena Zito observed that for all the snarking about the Acela class, Amtrak’s northeastern corridor runs through some poor and struggling communities, with images more often associated with the Rust Belt:

Outside, a different Acela corridor rolls by — one roiled by isolation, decay and societal changes, a world ghosted by technology, corrupt politicians and bad city planning.

Shuttered machine shops, refineries, steel mills and manufacturing plants near Trenton and Philadelphia slide past the window like a kaleidoscope of sorrow; scores of once-charming century-old houses are now covered in graffiti and dot areas in and around Baltimore, Newark and Wilmington, Del.

Big cities like Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Newark have no shortage of problems. But a sluggish, plodding, foot-dragging lifting of pandemic measures and restrictions didn’t help. Until Valentine’s Day, you had to show proof of vaccination to enter a Washington business or restaurant. And a few of the measures are still in place; in Washington, D.C., you must still wear a mask while using a ride-sharing service like Uber and Lyft, while the movers and shakers party maskless at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Maybe Washington has the advantage of all of that federal spending and federal jobs, but it has the disadvantage of terrible leadership and local policies.