Only in America

Event Name Only in America
Start Date 19th May 2008 1:00pm
End Date 19th May 2008 2:00pm
Duration 1 hour
Description

Imagine a city so powerful that the weapons commanded from its ministries could obliterate the globe many times over and yet so vulnerable that it cannot prevent a seventeen-year-old boy from killing half a dozen of its inhabitants in a shooting spree. A city so rich that it spends 150 million dollars a year on corporate lunches, dinners and fundraisers and yet so poor that its streets are frequently as potholed as those of any forgotten backwater in the developing world. A city that deploys more armed officers per square mile than any other in the world but has earned the title of being its country's murder capital.

Welcome to Washington DC: the Rome of the 21st century.


Join Matt Frei, the BBC's Washington correspondent, as he goes under the skin of America's capital to discover the paradox of the world's last remaining superpower.

Chair: Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA