- Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Out with the old, in with the new. It’s an adage that will certainly apply to the District of Columbia come Friday, when Vincent C. Gray exits left and Muriel Bowser steps up to be inaugurated as Her Honor the mayor.

Theirs was a hard-fought campaign for the Democratic nomination, mostly because there is no ideological divide between these two old-line liberals, now cast into a congressional sea of Republican conservatives. To set herself apart from her political godfathers, Ms. Bowser should quickly make it clear that she will govern from the center.

The chairman of the D.C. Council, Phil Mendelson, is himself a liberal and wears whatever shade of blue he deems expedient at the moment to push through socially or environmentally correct legislation. He’s looking ahead to 2018, and scuffles with Ms. Bowser is part of his game plan. A Democrat, Mr. Mendelson has conducted successful citywide races since he first ran for the council in 1998, and suffers the prospect of a ceiling at City Hall in 2018. He has not lost a campaign since 1998.

The taking of center and center-right positions on finances is imperative for the Bowser administration, just as it was for the three preceding mayors. Wall Street doesn’t take kindly to municipalities that live to tax and spend. Witness what happened in Detroit, with the state of Michigan to help pay the bills. With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, loose spending and government inefficiency will be targeted by the conservatives who will keep a tight grip on the money and a sharp eye on the books.

Where should the Bowser administration focus its energies? First, focus like a laser on economic growth, and population growth will follow. The District is bursting at the seams. The U.S. census reported the other day that the nation’s capital has a population of 659,000, with 1,100 more residents arriving every month. During his eight years as mayor, Tony Williams tightened purse strings and encouraged new housing, offices blocks and hotels. With that came the construction cranes. (Mr. Gray claims credit, too.) A Donald Trump hotel, expensive condos and rental apartments, Wal-Mart and other major retailers along the waterfronts in Southeast and Southwest will rearrange the D.C. skyline again.

The Bowser administration will need two and maybe three major announcements of economic development within the first year. One project can easily be envisioned now if the new mayor looks carefully through those picture windows on the sixth floor of City Hall and lets her eyes gaze across the capital. D.C. leaders have fallen into the habit of looking at the city from the ground, and this limits perspective. By looking at the city in a different way, the Bowser administration can build on the foundation laid by the Williams administration.

New condo, apartment and retail buildings cannot rise above the 555-foot Washington Monument. Mr. Trump’s Old Post Office Pavilion, at 315 feet, will tower over the U.S. Capitol, at 289 feet. Ms. Bowser must tell administrators at the D.C. Office of Planning and Department of Transportation to think outside a small box. Rep. Darrell E. Issa of California, a Republican, began stirring discussions during the 113th Congress. Ms. Bowser has an opportunity to keep the discussions going in the 114th Congress.

Skyscrapers aren’t the only way to keep the population growing. It took the congressionally mandated D.C. financial control board, Tony Williams as the city’s chief financial officer, and Marion Barry as mayor to recognize that the District no longer could depend on local and federal government sustenance to grow, and the capital’s future as a great city lies with a diversified economy.

Ms. Bowser’s former colleagues on the council will attempt to persuade her to boost spending on entitlements and other social service programs, and she must resist that temptation. Good intentions can lead to perdition. She must sustain the city’s growth with expanded opportunity. Developers and small-business owners are waiting for the mayor to move the bureaucrats out of the way. Ms. Bowser gets the authority to do that starting Friday. We wish her good luck. She’ll need all she can get.

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