A day’s stroll from one end of America’s federal capital to the other is a good way of exploring how the culture and topography of the city are evolving

“WELCOME to Washington, DC”, says the solid, red, white and blue sign on the corner of Branch and Southern Avenues, in this leafy entry to the nation’s capital. A stream of traffic is carrying in mostly African-American commuters from Maryland’s Prince George’s County. It is eight o’clock on a clear blue morning: a perfect day for a walk across Washington.

The distance from one end of the District of Columbia to the other is only about 11 miles (18km). Today’s zigzag route (see map) is perhaps 17 miles. The eyes of the world will be on Washington on January 20th, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as America’s 45th president. The idea of walking across it is to do a double dissection of the city: a geographical one (a leisurely look at its contrasts, from the poorer south-east to the prosperous north-west, where your correspondent lived in the mid-1990s); and a historical and cultural one (a sense of how the place has changed). On both dimensions, big surprises lay ahead.

A tale of two cities

Washington is known to be deeply divided—not just between warring Democrats and Republicans but also between the relatively affluent and diverse city west of the Anacostia river and the largely black and long-neglected one east of it. A recent study of the census tracts within a mile’s radius of one of the bridges across the river gives an idea of the gulf: unemployment of 6.6% and child poverty of 20% on the western side; 20.7% jobless and 53% child poverty to the east. The median value of an owner-occupied home in the west was two-and-a-half times that in the east.

A quarter of a century ago Washington was known as the “murder capital” of America, a result of a crack-cocaine epidemic (and the illicit market it gave rise to) from the mid-1980s. The number of murders peaked at 482 in 1991, falling to below 100 in 2012. Despite the dip, crime remains uncomfortably common: Washington ranks only just outside the ten worst large cities in the country for violent crime, and in 2015 it experienced a nasty uptick in murders. In 2016 it had 135 homicides.

A disproportionate share of the killing happens east of the river. The typical victim is “a 24-year-old black man in the south-east, who most likely knew their killer,” says Jennifer Swift, the editor of D.C. Witness, which monitors every murder. People who live on the other side of town tend to venture east of the Anacostia with a degree of wariness, if at all.

So the first surprise along gently undulating Branch Avenue is how pleasant and peaceful it is—all wood-clad and brick colonial homes with their porches, set back amid trees and lawns: the suburban American dream. A short detour leads to the Francis A. Gregory Library, built in 2012 by David Adjaye, the Ghanaian-British architect who has just been knighted by the queen and who made his name in America designing the newly opened National Museum of African-American History & Culture, the latest addition to the Smithsonian. If anything, the local library, an elegant mix of glass and diamond-shaped plywood, is the more pleasing of the two.

On the morning stretch your correspondent is accompanied by a friend from his time as The Economist’s Washington bureau chief in the 1990s, and by Mark Puryear, an ethnomusicologist and native Washingtonian. An hour into the walk the friend, Alissa Stern from Bethesda, Maryland, confesses to being “shocked” by how nice this area is.

True, Mr Puryear has planned our route into Anacostia with care. It meanders past civil-war defences with commanding views over the city and across the Potomac river into Virginia. It includes the Anacostia Community Museum, a branch of the Smithsonian where a recent exhibition, “Twelve Years that Shook and Shaped Washington: 1963-1975”, covered an earlier period of dramatic change for the city, including the riots that erupted after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 and the redevelopment that pushed many African-American families into public housing in Anacostia. Farther down, we reach the Anacostia home of Frederick Douglass, a 19th-century abolitionist and orator. The site is now run by the National Park Service; the visitors there are among the few white faces we see this morning.

Mr Puryear notes an abundance of one thing and a scarcity of another. The abundance is of churches. In front of the modest Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a smartly dressed Mary Ushbry is picking bits of litter off the street in preparation for a service this morning which, she says, is going to “bring some good news”. The grander Our Lady of Perpetual Help enjoys a stunning view over the city.

The scarcity is of shops. Only three supermarkets serve all of Wards 7 and 8, the administrative districts east of the river that, together, are home to about 140,000 people. “It’s a classic food desert,” says Mr Puryear. Nam’s Market, a small blue-fronted store near the Frederick Douglass house, keeps most of its wares—including cup noodles, tinned stew, Frooties—securely behind a glass partition and a bolted door. There is nothing fresh in sight.

Yet vegetables are sprouting a couple of blocks away on spare land between buildings in the centre of Anacostia, in 80 raised beds, thanks to volunteers from Union Temple Baptist Church. And Martha’s Table, a 37-year-old charity supporting access to healthy food, is moving its headquarters from the west of town to the east, where the need is greatest. Its “Joyful Food Markets” distribute fruit and vegetables to schools; by 2018 it aims to have such monthly markets in every elementary school in Wards 7 and 8.

A river runs through it

Such projects are part of this morning’s second surprise: the energy and imagination of the efforts under way to improve lives east of the river. Existing initiatives are being expanded: THEARC, a large centre for arts, recreation and education, opened in 2005 and is now planning to add a third building. The Department for Homeland Security is consolidating its headquarters in the Anacostia area. The District has thrown its support behind a $65m project for a practice facility for the Washington Wizards basketball team and an arena for the women’s team, the Mystics.

In a former Woolworths building on Good Hope Road, the Anacostia Arts Centre houses exhibitions, a restaurant, a small theatre and a few boutiques. Downstairs, it provides a home for (mainly African-American) start-ups and charities. Its head, Duane Gautier, says the area lacks the disposable income to attract the amenities that regeneration needs; his idea is to bring visitors from outside, using the arts to revitalise Anacostia’s historic district.

The centre, which opened in 2013, seems to be having some modest success. It is drawing in people: some 26,000 visitors in 2015. A juice bar has opened around the corner on Martin Luther King Jr Avenue, as have a couple of sit-down restaurants and a radio station. A trendy Busboys and Poets restaurant—in Washington, a leading indicator of a community on the up—is coming soon.

But the idea that could have the most dramatic impact on Anacostia is the 11th Street Bridge Park. This aims to use the pillars from a disused road bridge across the river to create a recreation space that would help to unite the two sides of the city. About the length of three American-football fields, the bridge would have lawns, waterfalls, an amphitheatre and a picnic garden.

The concept has something of New York’s High Line about it. “It will be a destination—more a place than a path,” says Scott Kratz, the project’s director, over a freshly made sandwich at the Anacostia Arts Centre’s café. The river has divided Washington for generations, he says; now it can bring together “people who wouldn’t normally cross paths”. Pre-construction work has started, and he hopes the park will open in late 2019.

Mr Kratz is busy not just raising the $45m needed for the bridge, but working on ways to avoid its most feared side-effect: gentrification. His “Equitable Development Plan” includes leveraging the project to encourage small businesses, and a homebuyers’ club so locals can capture some of the rising equity that is coming their way.

Boomtown, USA

To see what gentrification looks like, you have only to cross the river. Already from the bridge, massive building development starts to come into view. The third surprise of the walk is the scale of the boom that is under way in many parts of the city.

Yards Park, next to the Navy Yards, is a good example. Washington was founded on the confluence of the Anacostia and Potomac rivers, but it had largely turned its back on the Anacostia, heavily polluted and lined with industrial buildings and parking lots. Now it is clearing these away; a boardwalk, jetties, park facilities and apartment blocks with river views are coming. A sign by a building site even announces an imminent “District Winery”.

“People forget, we’re a water city,” says Charles Allen, the council member for Ward 6, which straddles all four quadrants of the city. The river is not only becoming more accessible again, it is gradually being cleaned up. Mr Allen points across to a pontoon where ospreys have been nesting. Bald-eagle chicks have been spotted, too. It still would not be wise to eat fish caught in the Anacostia, but a group is out on a boat fishing this afternoon.

Two decades ago the District was a potholed basket-case that was losing people to the suburbs. Now its finances are healthy and it is gaining about 1,100 newcomers a month. Being home to the federal government helped Washington weather the financial crisis with relative ease. More remarkably, what was once just a staid federal city is attracting young entrepreneurs and becoming hip—a place of cycle lanes, fancy coffee shops, communal library boxes and yoga mats.

The population has grown by some 100,000 over the past 15 years, to 670,000. The ethnic mix is changing, too. In 1980, 70% of the population was black; this has dipped below 50%.

“There’s no question, the city is going through a complete reshaping,” says Mr Allen. “We are in the middle of that.” Two groups in particular are moving in, he explains. One are 25- to 35-year-olds, starting out on their careers. The other are 55- to 65-year-olds, empty-nesters from the baby-boom generation, who want arts, culture and restaurants within walkable reach. The worry in many parts of town has switched from coping with crime to coping with the soaring house prices that come with gentrification.

Shaw, once down-at-heel, is very trendy. NoMa, as the area “North of Massachusetts Avenue” is now branded, has similar aspirations. The “H Street corridor” boasts cool restaurants and a lively theatre: “It’s not up and coming, it’s come,” marvels a visitor from another part of town. It is the same story around Union Market (“This was a war zone,” says another visitor). Streets near Eastern Market are lined with restaurants; a nearby resident has counted 45 of them within a short walk from his home. Eateries and bars have moved into parts of town, like 14th Street, where you used to trip over needles and condoms.

In 1994 your correspondent reported on a twice-weekly evening “orange hat” patrol around the Lincoln Park area east of the Capitol that sought to keep the neighbourhood safe. One of those orange-hatters, who moved out when his wife had their first child as this seemed no place to raise a family, is stunned by the change he sees when he returns. As we revisit the area the day before the walk across the city, we come across a young couple with their three-year-old daughter from northern Virginia. They are here to view a house. They are drawn by the free pre-school—and it’s two blocks from Lincoln Park, “and you can’t get much better than that.”

Centre of attention

The next part of the walk—skirting by the Capitol Building, down the National Mall towards the Washington Monument—is a reminder of Pierre L’Enfant’s vision in designing America’s capital on such a grand scale in the 1790s. Hence the majestic vista across the crowds and flags to the Lincoln memorial two miles away that will greet President Trump on his inauguration. No one could invent a better backdrop for “making America great again”.

Yet, until recently, America’s “front yard” was in danger of becoming a symbol of national decline. Its lawns, a much-trodden carpet for 24m visitors a year, were looking the worse for wear, and the Mall and its monuments were badly in need of maintenance after decades of neglect. The Washington Monument, an emblem of American aspiration, reopened in 2014 after $15m of repairs for damage it suffered in an earthquake in 2011, but its lift broke down last August and it will remain closed to visitors until 2019. Still, fresh investment has been coming in, along with new attractions.

So much on offer Two recent additions in the heart of the capital are drawing attention. The first is the National Museum of African-American History & Culture, approved in 2003 by President George W. Bush and opened, fittingly, by President Barack Obama on September 24th. It is intended to be the last of the buildings on the Mall. When tickets were released for the three months to the end of the year, they were snapped up in 42 minutes. The place is packed. The visitors, mostly African-Americans, seem totally absorbed: quietly contemplative or softly sharing their responses (“They wouldn’t serve me at the counter”). Starting in subterranean exhibits on the slave trade, the civil war, segregation and civil rights, the crowd moves up into the light towards floors devoted to communities and culture. This would justify a full day’s walk of its own. The second is the five-star Trump International Hotel, which opened on September 12th in the Old Post Office building. Today there is even a glimpse of the Donald himself—though only on the four large television screens behind the bar. The staff are friendly, but the central court feels cavernous and lacks atmosphere, a missed opportunity to do something more imaginative with a grand space. Already the hotel, with its “Presidential Ballroom”, has proved to be a magnet for receptions and (thanks to its name and ownership) for controversy. From here it is a short walk to the White House. The ability to drive past it along Pennsylvania Avenue ended, for security reasons, in 1995. Walking by it is still a thrill. But Washingtonians now shudder at the thought of its next occupant: 90% of their votes in November were for Hillary Clinton, just 4% for Mr Trump. A block away, on 17th Street, are the offices of Holland and Knight, a law firm with another superb view across town. Whayne Quin, a lawyer with long experience of development in the District, spreads out a giant, multicoloured map of Washington’s “Comprehensive Plan”, which shows the city’s ambitions for the use of its 61 square miles of land and seven square miles of water. The green areas of the extensive park system at its core stand out amid ample amounts of yellow (“low-density residential”) and pockets of red (“high-density commercial”). Mr Quin points out that the development across the city has happened despite significant constraints, notably on building height (skyscrapers are conspicuous by their absence here). The planners have been flexible, though, allowing taller buildings provided certain obligations are met, for example on mixed use and social housing.

A pragmatic approach to planning is one of several factors that have combined to change Washington’s fortunes, in Mr Quin’s view. Sensible financial management is another: the city has balanced its budget since Congress imposed a Financial Control Board from 1995 to 2001 to stop the rot. A third is diversification beyond the core industry of government. The Washington area has become a hub for technology, and for the services that techies demand. Young newcomers are putting down roots, reinforcing a cultural change, especially on race. “It’s now a very diversified, progressive and forward-thinking city,” says Mr Quin, “but that wasn’t so when I came here in 1964.”

Half an hour’s walk beyond, across Rock Creek, the loveliest of all the many green spaces in Washington, lies Georgetown, which has long been upscale, but if anything now seems more so. There’s time for a quick peek at an addition to the capital’s embassy scene—the world’s youngest country, South Sudan, flies its flag in an alleyway down from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal—then it’s a long uphill march along Wisconsin Avenue towards the final destination.

The home stretch

Across the city, posters calling for statehood for the District have been a reminder that its lack of full representation in Congress remains an issue. In a telephone conversation at the start of the day, Anthony Williams, the former mayor who oversaw the recovery from Washington’s nadir in the 1990s, says that one strategy for the future is to keep drawing attention to Washington the city rather than Washington the federal capital. The District has leveraged the presence of the national government well, he says, but since federal spending is likely to remain flat further diversification will be essential. He describes the state of the city succinctly: “It’s improved, but there’s still a very great divide.”

Indeed, in some respects, the contrast between the morning walk and the last stretch couldn’t be greater. Most of the faces are now white. Instead of a food desert, there is a cornucopia of Safeways, Giants and Whole Foods Markets. Recreational spaces abound: boys are playing after-school softball and a group of girls are starting rugby practice.

Moreover, unlike Anacostia, where change is in the air, this part of north-west Washington seems almost exactly as your correspondent left it 20 years ago. The flower store is still there. Our old house on Van Ness Street, a picture-book redbrick colonial, is just the same as ever—except, of course, for its value, which according to Zillow, an online property database, has risen more than threefold since we left it.

And yet in another respect these two ends of town are remarkably similar—and that is the final surprise of this walk across Washington. The houses in the two neighbourhoods look interchangeable. The landscaping is the same. The evening tranquillity in the north-west, amid the greenery and the birdsong, feels much like the morning peace in the south-east. It’s seven o’clock and getting dark at the yellow-bordered sign on Massachusetts Avenue saying “Maryland welcomes you”, and it feels almost as if the walk has come full circle.