Flaunt What You've Got: "Flaunt What You've Got
D.C.'s New Gilded Age"
What's different about Washington in this latest Gilded Age is the amount of money sloshing around this city -- this region, actually -- and the ostentatious display thereof. Consider: The number of households in the Washington area with more than $1 million in investable assets (that is, not including real estate) grew 9.6 percent between 2003 and 2004 alone, according to the demographic research firm Claritas. By contrast, total households in the region rose just 2.5 percent.
And if you doubt that these folks are flaunting it, take a drive out along River Road into Maryland, or Georgetown Pike in Virginia, and look at the acres upon acres of elephantine monstrosities, turreted and Palladian windowed and mega-garaged. Or look at the magnificent quarter-mile arising in Chevy Chase, where Barneys, Jimmy Choo and Dior are replacing a dowdy suburban strip mall. Not exactly Sparta on the Potomac.

The result is a strange version of increasing income inequality, Washington-style: a growing gap between the haves and the have-powers. This doesn't excuse, but it may help explain, some of the capital's more repulsive recent episodes.