Work Outside D.C.’s Primary Blast Radius
December 27th, 2006Via: Washington Post:
Winchester and its neighbors along Interstate 81 in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley have much to recommend themselves to potential employers, including a low cost of living, access to a major highway and views of the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains.
More recently, though, the area has been successfully trumpeting another attribute: It is just outside the “blast zone.”
In a little-noticed migration with implications for both greater Washington and the valley, several federal agencies, including the FBI, are relocating operations to the I-81 corridor. Helping drive the shift is the government’s emphasis on security in a post-Sept. 11 world, which turns Winchester’s location 75 miles from Washington into a geographic ideal. It is far enough from the capital to escape the fallout of a nuclear explosion — a distance often estimated at 50 miles — but still close enough so that employees can get to the District relatively easily when they need to.
Makes me wonder if Bethlehem is fifty miles from Jerusalem.