When we went to New York in 2019, I posted about how it felt like the center of the world. The pace of life was fast and intense; every possible ethnicity was represented; there was lots of activity on the street; and the power of the place was represented vertically, in skyscrapers.
Washington, D.C. is the antithesis of New York. It’s a company town, and it all revolves around political power. Nobody lives there permanently. There is little activity on the street. Culture only really exists there to serve the wealthy. Unlike New York, power in architecture is expressed horizontally; the massive concrete and stone government buildings are kind of overwhelming in their own way.
Washington doesn’t remind me of any European or Asian capital that I have seen. The visibility and size of the Capitol building, and the presence of the Washington Monument, suggest a vastly larger and more powerful version of the Vatican. That’s a company town with influence all over the world, as well.