Wealth Concentrates in Neighborhood Full of Government Contractors

This concentration of wealth through government contracts is especially clear in an area called Great Falls, where more than half of its households have an income above $250,000.

"Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America - Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City - are here, census data shows.

The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxury boutiques such as Gucci and Tory Burch opening at Tysons Galleria to the $15 cocktails served over artisanal ice at the W Hotel in the District to the ever-larger houses rising off River Road in Potomac.

But nowhere is the region's wealth more concentrated than the place where Talwar purchased her 15,000-square-foot white-brick estate home: Great Falls, a once-rural enclave of about 15,000 residents 17 miles west of the White House."