Since it's been established here, here, and here that terminology matters, it seems worth pointing out the screaming language on the front page of the Washington Examiner yesterday: "Suburban dreams turn into ghettoes." The headline inside the paper said: "Foreclosure crisis creating suburban slums."

The story by Bill Myers and David Sherfinski began:

Two years of economic collapse have pockmarked the D.C. region's affluent suburbs with blight, and experts are worried that the foundering cul-de-sacs and towns are on the verge of becoming the region's next ghettoes.

Here's another term – "ghetto" – that gets thrown around far too much, and too casually, in talking about urban (and, in this case, suburban) problems.

Greater Greater Washington looked at the use of the word and its social and racial implications a few months ago; City Desk followed up.

The Examiner story (the main online headline is "Bedroom community blues" instead) referenced dropping home values, falling tax revenues, the high foreclosure rate in some local jurisdictions, and the fact that some – many? it's unclear – former single-family homes are now being (gasp) rented out. It quoted the president of the Kettering Community Association in Upper Marlboro, Linda Crudup, describing the vandalism of some of those foreclosed properties, in the form of broken windows and doors kicked in. It vaguely spoke of "neighbors who just a few years ago worried about curb height or speed bumps" now finding themselves "fighting to keep drug dealers from setting up shop in boarded-up homes." The story also cited an increase in homelessness in Prince William and Loudon and noted one Fairfax County district is "littered with hundreds of boarded-up McMansions."

Those are real problems, to be sure. But they have nothing to do with the term "ghetto," or the actual thing.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

Around noon on Saturday, an unidentified man moved into the path of a train at the Potomac Avenue station in Southeast and was struck by an Orange Line train.  EMS technicians worked to free the man and eventually transported him to a local hospital but he later died from his injuries.  Approximately 24 hours later, Gweno Ladisch, a French woman living in Chevy Chase, also purposely placed herself in front of a train at Bethesda station and died as a result.  Metro suicides like these are tragic, isolated incidents but are becoming more frequent, according to a poll in today's Examiner.  It's the other incidents of violence that have greater shock value.

Yesterday, two employees of the Potomac and Rappahannock Transit Commission were shot and killed at a bus terminal in Prince William County.  A suspect, Glenn Wade, who also happened to be a roommate of one of the victims, turned himself in and was charged with murder last night.  According to police, an altercation between the two men may have resulted in the shooting, but a reason behind the action doesn't make it better.

What is it about this area?  It was only last November that a 15 year old boy was shot and killed on a Ride-On bus in Silver Spring.  Two years ago, people nation-wide were praising Wesley Autry, the New Yorker who saved a stranger's life by throwing himself onto the tracks as the train passed over them.  In DC, four people have died in three days with little fanfare.  Our public transit system needs a safety overhaul, that's for sure.  But maybe Washingtonians aren't fazed.  According to Metro's ridership statistics, the number of people using Metro is constantly rising.