The Washington Beltway: Inside and Outside
Near Dc Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C.
The Capital Beltway is a sixty-four mile loop around Washington that carries Interstate Four-Ninety-Five, and Interstate Ninety-Five on its southern and eastern sections, in a ring around the federal district and its surrounding suburbs. The phrase inside the Beltway has entered American political vocabulary as a description of the insular political culture of federal Washington, the assumption that those who work and think within the ring live differently from the rest of the country. The geographic reality is more complicated.
The Beltway passes through some of the wealthiest and some of the most economically stressed communities in the mid-Atlantic region within the same loop. The northern Virginia suburbs inside the Beltway, Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, have grown into substantial cities in their own right, housing the contractors, consultants, lobbyists, and agencies that constitute the federal government's extended ecosystem. The Maryland suburbs to the north and east have a different character, with a higher proportion of federal workers themselves and a more racially diverse population than the Virginia side.
The Washington Monument and the Capitol dome are visible from elevated sections of the Beltway on clear days. The Anacostia River, which flows through the District of Columbia, is one of the most polluted urban waterways in the country, though restoration efforts have improved its water quality measurably in the last twenty years.
