The Democratic mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, is calling on President Biden to end pandemic-era remote-work policies for federal employees or surrender empty government office space for housing, the latest fight in the ongoing battle to save America’s cities from extinction.

The Federal Communication Commission’s new office building is a gleaming example of the standoff, with a General Accounting Office report putting the tab at $14 million for its eight empty stories. Turning it over to the District, however, wouldn’t be inexpensive. The FCC, as reported by the Washington Post, wants $40 million from taxpayers to move.

“We need decisive action by the White House,” Ms. Bowser said in her inaugural address, “to either get most federal workers back to the office most of the time or realign their vast property holdings for use by the local government, by nonprofits, by businesses, and by any user willing to revitalize it.” 

The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Tuesday, “I don’t have any announcement to make from here, or any response, really, to Mayor Bowser.” She repeated the statement in response to a follow-up question, saying she had no news on “any changes … as it relates to federal buildings and federal workers.”

Ms. Jean-Pierre then offered canned rhetoric about Mr. Biden’s commitment to affordable housing and something of a non-sequitur for people to “follow the science” and get vaccinated. Not the promise to work together for a solution that the mayor sought.

Ms. Bowser’s vision is adding 15,000 residents to downtown in the next five years, with a target of 100,000 afterward. “That’s a bold goal,” she said, “but the fact is, no matter what we do, it won’t be fast enough without the help of the White House. The federal government represents one quarter of D.C.’s pre-pandemic jobs and owns or leases one third of D.C.’s office space.”

A government survey found that only 3 percent of federal employees dialed into work before the pandemic, a figure the U.S. Office of Personnel Management now puts at 46 percent, and some agencies are setting this as the new normal. As of last month, all full-time jobs at the National Archives can be performed remotely.

 With about half of D.C. employees now working from the comfort of their couches, they’re not patronizing businesses and restaurants, or paying taxes. Public transportation demonstrates the scope of the problem and its trickle-down effects. “Washington’s Metro,” according to the Hill, “carried roughly 225,000 daily passengers through October, two-fifths of its 2019 ridership,” and it’s looking at a $184 million deficit.

Crime and riots in the wake of the George Floyd murder and criminal justice changes in the name of reform have only made Washington less appealing. The nation’s capital hit 100 murders by June and the total by the end of the year was more than twice that.

“This is the first time since 2002-2003 that D.C. has suffered back-to-back years with 200-plus homicides,” the D.C. police union tweeted. A separate tweet noted that the city is “short 100s of cops and the responsible policing that used to address this has been prohibited by misguided legislation.”

The chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, Robert Contee, pointed out that there was a 7 percent decrease in crime overall in 2022, also citing a 3 percent dip in property crimes versus 2021. However, since the population dropped, there were fewer potential victims.

Adding to the drain, the Census Bureau found that during the first year of the pandemic alone, 20,000 residents moved elsewhere, and the District isn’t alone. A Brookings Institution analysis found “an absolute decline in the aggregate size of the nation’s 56 major metropolitan areas.”

Ms. Bowser needs the president’s help to address the problems facing her city, and though she belongs to the same party as Mr. Biden, she has no choice but to keep pressing the matter, or else wake up one day to find herself the mayor of a ghost town.