It is also a separate place of mind. Many residents registering to vote for the first time are shocked to discover they aren't living in Ward 3. The remainder of the ward has distinct neighborhoods, including historic Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights, LeDroit Park, a piece of Shaw, Adams-Morgan and the Georgia Avenue corridor. But they tend to be struggling with many of the same issues, as middle-class American families, white and black, share public spaces with immigrants from impoverished nations around the world. In this election year for the District, however, there are some areas of common agreement throughout the ward.
People seem hopeful.
The ward is filled with activists, many of them veterans of the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the fight for gay rights, the Peace Corps. Those activists have created nonprofit agencies that build more housing than private developers or government, that deliver health care, substance abuse treatment and even nitty-gritty services such as recycling and street cleaning. The Whitman-Walker Clinic, which serves a largely gay population, is the ward's largest single employer. It is in this ward that the American experiment with massive immigration in a highly technical age is being played out every day. The verdict on how it's working is not yet in.