The brain trust behind the Georgetown-Rosslyn Gondola project proposes slinging wires across the Potomac River, running a sort of skyline streetcar across the expanse, and connecting two of the wealthiest population centers in the country. It would cost $90 million, and it promises “access with a view.”
Unnecessary and expensive, this proposed Georgetown gondola provides at least something valuable: a perfect microcosm of how the wealthy leech from the rest of the country.
Vanity cable cars aren’t necessary to zip yuppies from one super zip to another, even if wealth has spontaneously concentrated itself around political power. According to the Census Bureau, the five wealthiest counties are now within driving distance of Washington, D.C., data points unsurprising to anyone looking up and counting the ever-present construction cranes dotting the horizon of our national capital.
The five wealthiest counties by median household income are Loudoun County, Va. ($129,588), Fairfax County, Va. ($117,515), Howard County, Md. ($115,576), Falls Church City, Va. ($114,795), and Arlington County, Va. ($112,138).
An us-versus-them narrative becomes inescapable when comparing those rich to the poor in places like McCreary County, Ky., Holmes County, Miss., and Sumter County, Ala. Ferraris don’t roll down the main streets of towns in those counties. Michelin stars aren’t distributed at local eateries. And hell no, expensive vanity projects aren’t proposed.
My point is not to encourage populist covetousness, but to point out that the richest and the poorest seem to produce about the same. The five wealthiest export a steady supply of bureaucracy and wonkery, all of little value.
Whether they realized it or not, those planners pushing the Georgetown-Rosslyn Gondola project provide a valuable insight. Even if their playground infrastructure never gets off the ground, it stands as a testament to the two different worlds already developed in the same country. One set produces nothing and is forgotten. The other produces nothing but enjoys tax-funded decadence.
Access with a view, indeed.
