I recently spent five days in our nation’s capital, Washington DC for a conference, and had the interesting experience of staying in nearby Crystal City an “urban village” as it is called on Wikipedia that is located south of Washington DC in Arlington, Virginia.

I had spent some time there at a week-long conference years ago and that trip did not leave me with good impressions of the urban-suburban-feeling place. In fact, I hated it. Fast-forward ten years and I could not believe how much it has changed.