I left China in 2016 and now I live in Seattle. I lived in Austin for a summer in 2001 (the summer before 9/11) and it was…hard, I had to evict a squatter from my sublet, the property crime was high and people skulked around in the morning looking through everyone’s trash. Anyways, not sure if your argument is that it is better or worse now, but definitely not a place I want to live in ever again.

There are 6.3 million in the greater DC area, DC is a small part of what goes on in that region.