Two worlds are on the brink of colliding in the coming months. First, there is the world of one of the planet’s most favorable places, the City of Falls Church with its world class school system, growing numbers of outstanding and highly rated restaurants, pristine residential neighborhoods and a colorful, exploding corridor of businesses running through its center. Second, there is the outside world, so to speak, with the incoming Trump administration repeating threats to decimate the federal workforce and savage the economic growth potential here.

Falls Church’s City Manager Wyatt Shields, in response to a question from this newspaper about the importance of that federal workforce here, said this: “The City is home to many dedicated and talented federal government employees. They are our neighbors and community members and we deeply appreciate their talent and service to the country. And the federal workforce is a key foundation to our regional economy. There are approximately 370,000 federal employees in the national capital region. While the number of federal employees in the region (and nationally) has been relatively flat for years, each federal job here supports three to four additional jobs in our economy.”

Each federal job here supports three to four additional jobs in our economy! So the spectre of a significant reduction in the numbers of federal employees the way the incoming Trump administration is threatening to implement as early as next month should be the source of considerable heartburn for us all.

Yes, Falls Church by this time, after a quarter century of aggressively developing both its economic and educational potential, has made itself into such a desirable place to live that that fact alone may spell its saving and surviving grace relative to its neighbors. Falls Church sits well at this point, having avoided the excessive commercial real estate trap that now has almost every other jurisdiction in the wider region sweating record high vacancy rates.

But it is going to take some very creative thinking to weather the coming storm. The Little City will be far from immune from serious disruptions to the wider region, whether they are as bad as they could be or, hopefully, are not.

For example, the first canary in the coal mine may have been heard from (or not) at Monday’s joint City Council and School Board work session to begin a new annual budget cycle. First, we preface that by exclaiming what a powerful place the Mill Creek folks have created at Founders Row 1 as evidenced by the heavily attended Winter Wonderland event held there Tuesday and its amazing assemblage of truly extraordinary restaurants. That said, the meals tax report this Monday presents a serious challenge. It was not what it should be, and must not become a harbinger of the City’s inability to attract enough bodies to patronize all our new businesses at a level required for their success. Let’s intensify the effort to market the City to the wider region.