Almost exactly three years after leaving Dallas to earn my Georgetown Tax LL.M. degree in Washington, D.C., I was headed back to Texas.
The pandemic triggered an exodus from the District among my social network. Despite the ubiquitous “diversity and inclusion” marketing among D.C. employers, LGBT and brown people are still the first ones to get fired when there’s economic uncertainty. Many of my friends working in politics, nonprofits, and the service industry got the chop pretty early. They abandoned their apartments and moved back to their hometowns at the beginning of the summer.
Then a larger group of people started trickling out of the District as months ticked by and leases came up for renewal. With fully-virtual office environments and most amenities shuttered, why pay a premium to live in the District?
