Crowd Control
As several friends of mine can verify, Saturday night I was expressing some skepticism about the idea that seventy-gillion people were really all going to schlep down to DC to stand outside in January amidst a giant crowd. Among other things, the crowd estimate sizes seemed to have been pulled out of thin air. Now I read:
Officials are casting doubt on an early projection that 4 million to 5 million people could jam downtown Washington on Inauguration Day, saying it is more likely that the crowd will be about half that size.
D.C. authorities said the earlier estimates, provided by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), were based on speculation surrounding the historic nature of the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African American president. After weeks of checking with charter bus companies, airlines and other sources, they’re reassessing.
Duly noted. What’s more, let me say that despite widespread rumors of people reaping windfalls by renting out their houses for Inauguration Week, I have yet to encounter real hard evidence of any such thing happening.
49 Responses to “Crowd Control”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
It turns out that half the American population is gay, and because of the Rick Warren thing they won’t be attending. It also turns out that they’re mostly millionaires, thus the collapse of the inauguration rental bubble.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
So… anything you’d like to say to Jennifer?
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
Jennifer who? Is there someone named Jennifer who is in the news?
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
All the readers of MY are staying home in protest.
Good job Ms. Palmieri.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
despite widespread rumors of people reaping windfalls by renting out their houses for Inauguration Week, I have yet to encounter real hard evidence of any such thing happening.
There appears to be someone who thinks she rented this blog for inauguration week, if not beyond–a Ms. Palmieri. Ansd she seems to be having some crowd control problems . . .
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
I approve of the content of this post.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:50 am
I’m not sure that Matt actually posted this. I think maybe Jenny P. is still in control.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
CAP has rented out this blog to you … but they kept a key.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
LOL. You know what? I think Matt Yglasias doesn’t write here at all anymore, it’s all Jennifer Palmieri all the time.
Pathetic.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
Poor Matt. It’s bad enough that his blog got hijacked by a controlling boss, now he is getting reminded of it in every thread.
Inauguration Day still seems like a no-go for most locals. DC doesn’t seem to be great at planning this sort of thing. On the 4th it is crazy on the mall, so I can’t even imagine what is going to happen for a much bigger crowd. NY does a good job of managing the Times Square crowd. They organize people into little roped off areas, and limit the number of people in each such area. It limits movement, but it also prevents pushing and drama from spreading outside of that little square.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:55 am
Goddammit Matt, just acknowledge what happened so we can move on. This is too weird.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Some advice: if you use bigger pictures and graphs, the post you’re trying to hide will move down the page much quicker!
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
Wait to keep the fire burning, guys. Glad that The Third Way, virtually unknown before, is now known widely as a lame organization at the least and a cover Republican outfit dressing up as Democrats. Good work CAP!
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
PLEASE HELP ME. I have been abducted and I miss my owner.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Free Jennifer Palmieri!!! I for one would like to see some recognition for all of her hard work here. Maybe a new banner for the site?
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Matt,
You really are going to have to address what happened. Your boss just shat all over your blog, and it is concerning and embarrassing to see you just pass over the intervention in silence.
I’m trying to think how I would react if my own boss had not just sent out a message to our business associates demurring from something I had said in email communication, but had actually commandeered my own personal email account and sent a message under my own header that said “This is Dan’s boss; Dan made a big boo-boo.”
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
I expect a quasi-Maoist href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism”>self-criticism post from Matt any minute now.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
Aren’t you supposed to say, “Jennifer, May I?” for a post to be valid?
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:12 am
Oops!
Comrades, forgive the bourgeois lapse in my attention to basic HTML. I am indeed a lazy dog. In my defense, there is no preview here.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:12 am
I suspect Matt’s not in a position to comment right now, and won’t be until he has his next gig arranged (and hasn’t signed any nondisclosure agreements with the current one).
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:18 am
Estimating the numbers for any sort of mass gathering is very difficult. It’s sometimes possible to get a sort of semi-decent estimate when the crowd is in one cohesive block, for example a gathering in a town square, but when the crowd is spread out any estimates are pretty much just guesswork.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:19 am
Watching a blog implode in real time is kind of interesting.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:20 am
I’m also blogging my actual thoughts here. This blog is just my money gig.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
Seriously, Palmieri’s title of “Senior Vice President of Communications” suddenly has a really Orwellian / totalitarian tinge.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:42 am
We here at Think Progress appreciate the blogging that Matt does. We also have a very good relationship with unruly crowds and have partnered with them on many occasions. We wish to make it clear that comments made by Matt do not reflect the opinion of the Think Progress management, or that of our affiliate partners.
Thank You
- The Management
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 am
As several friends of mine can verify, Saturday night I was expressing some skepticism about the idea that seventy-gillion people were really all going to schlep down to DC to stand outside in January amidst a giant crowd.
Very prescient, Jennifer. Funny how the “5 million people” and “15k a week rental” memes went from nothing to accepted wisdom in the blink of an eye. We live in an era of credulousness.
Wonder what Matt would have to say about all this…
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 am
Oh, good, instead of a zillion people we’re only getting half a zillion. I was worried for a second there.
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:32 am
I’m not even going to watch it on TV. Rick Warren can preach in his “humble” megachurch, but not to me!
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:38 am
The crowd depends upon the weather. If the weather is like today in DC, A high of 29 and a wind chill in the single digits, the crowd will be much smaller. If the temp is above 40, the crowd will be much bigger.
Controlling the crowd will not be as much a problem is controlling the exist. The arrivals will be spread over a longer period of time than the exits.
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Ya I live in Glendale, AZ where the last Super Bowl was and everyone was all a twitter about renting their house for $10,000 a week. It mostly didn’t happen.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
All that stuff won’t happen. For one thing, all the hype about crowds will just chase people away, and then no one shows up. The same thing happened in Atlanta for the ‘96 olympics. People were predicting huge traffic jams and everyone thought that they would be able to rent their house out for big bucks. Turned out that all the talk scared people away, so that landlords who arranged to kick out their tenants ahead of the games ended up with empty properties, and people stayed off the interstates in favor of the subways such that you could speed through downtown during rush hour, but had to cram on the subway with a gazillion other angry people. Same will happen in DC.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I remember DC recently instituted a law requiring that tour buses register to receive a permit. There should at least be a good guess for the number of people arriving by bus.
I’ve tried googling for news stories mentioning the number of permits sold (they cost $50 each), but all I find are stories about the passing of the law, or about how buses need to buy this permit to park on inauguration day. No one mentions how many have been sold.
Surely one of DC’s most powerful could find out that number and write a penetrating and hard-nosed piece based on it. Even better, it can be used to write a “meta” story on how the press doesn’t bother getting the facts when there is hype available.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Great site.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Nice site you have!
February 25th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
yglesias.thinkprogress.org то что надо, ребя так держать!!!!!!!!!
March 1st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
cialis
Great site. Good info
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:56 am
Gut!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
March 13th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Sehr wertvolle Informationen! Empfehlen!
March 14th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Great site. Good info
xanax
March 17th, 2009 at 2:22 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:00 am
tramadol
Great site. Good info
March 31st, 2009 at 3:11 am
пытаюсь подписаться, но рсс почему-то в кривой кодировке выдает что я делаю не так? Хелп
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:04 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:03 am
Great site. Good info
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 11th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
zkaxy yncsuegmz kxmrbyit bwekjsugq ehxkl ulsb fsgzp
April 16th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Удивительно как Вы при достаточно спокойном таком стиле в плане дизайна блога смогли все так грамотно скомпоновать. Тут и текст, и оглавление и ссылки и навигация прикольная. Я вот два раза начинал дизайн мастерить, но так не разу не смог к идеау прийти. Если надумаете когда-то заняься благотворительностью и выложить Ваш шаблон в свободный доступ, то я его первый скачаю, единсвенно только теги пока у Вас не модные. видел щаз крутящиеся уже. До встречи в блогосфере.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Badly need your help. Books…are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with ‘em, then we grow out of ‘em and leave ‘em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.
I am from Romania and bad know English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: “Trying to find airline tickets? Aol travel is your one stop resource for flights, airfare, and cheap airline tickets to meet all your travel needs.”
Waiting for a reply
, Emily.