Living in the Washington, DC area

I have been living here for about 10 years now...
One of the major complaints that I had with the people from the area is that they do not get involved with the community. Or, the majority of people I meet who are from the area don't. There are the groups that are in the 'in crowd' who do, but the average person just doesn't get into DC for anything. It's very depressing.
Part is because if you live in the burbs and commute each day to DC, you don't want to go for fun because the traffic is almost as bad (going out to clubs of course is the exception). There is not a lot of parking in DC, there can be consistent traffic and when you get there you are either there during the winter (when it's cold to walk around), or in the summer with lots of tourists. Of course, I'm used to crowds so that doesn't bother me, although I do avoid the high tourist areas because I don't need to wait in lines for 1/2 hour to enter the building...
So, we just had the Cherry Blossom Festival. And I didn't go. It's just pretty sad.