No abstract

No abstract

Harrington and Campbell (1997) previously illuminated the pattern of producer services' suburbanization in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area between 1970 and 1992. Their results showed producer services growing at a faster rate at locations farther from the central city. We revisit the topic utilizing data from 2004 to 2010, assessing not only changes in the distribution of producer services since their work, but also the impact of massive increases in defense spending on producer services' growth throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century. Multivariate linear regression is used to estimate per capita growth of producer services employment using six independent variables. Our results reveal producer services employment during the time period has grown significantly more quickly in the urban D.C. core than the outer suburbs, contrary to Harrington and Campbell's research. Additionally, we find per capita producer services employment is self-limiting over the study period: locations with more producer services employment in 2004 experienced significantly less producer services growth over the period. We find federal procurement has no correlation on producer services overall, with limited effects on some subsectors. Analyzing a select group of producer services subsectors revealed that no sectors followed the overall model exactly, suggesting that targeting producer services for growth must be done carefully. None of our models show employment diversity to be a factor in differentiating economic growth at the intra-metropolitan level.

Tourists visiting the National Mall and Memorial Parks, an urban park located in the capital of the US, Washington, DC, are predominantly engaged with monuments, memorials, museums, and other historic sites. Current challenges facing this heritage destination are linked to significant deferred maintenance that has negatively impacted the visual appeal of popular sites, facilities, and green-space. Using a mixed-methods approach framed within symbolic interactionism and cognitive dissonance, researchers examined the meanings visitors attributed to the destination, comparing national and international tourists. National tourists were more likely to indicate that the visit evoked strong emotional responses ranging from pride to embarrassment, consistently noting that maintenance shortcomings reflected poorly on their country as a whole. The findings inform destination management in capital cities.