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It’s a capital carved out of two different
states, a town at the center of a government

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that doesn’t represent them, and a diverse,
multicultural city known for its unusually

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high number of geriatric white dudes in power.

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What is Washington, DC, if not the land of
contradictions?

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Even its shape seems contradictory; it is—unlike
the natural sprawl of most cities—almost

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a perfect square until it disappears into
the Potomac river.

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But why is DC a perfect square, and where
did the rest of it go?

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Our story begins the same way the musical
Hamilton begins if you snuck in during intermission:

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with the Constitution—specifically, the
convention that ratified it in 1789.

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There were many vexing questions that they
needed to answer, with not a lot of time on

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their hands—how many votes did states get
in national elections?

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How did congressmen get elected?

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Are women real people or are they just kind
of fun, decorative objects that you can put

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in your house?

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But in between these important matters was
the issue of the capital.

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After bouncing between Philadelphia, Trenton,
Annapolis, and New York City for sessions

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of Congress, they wisely deduced that sending
every member of congress up and down the east

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coast was ultimately going to be at odds with
Amtrak’s plan to never offer cheap train

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tickets ever in history, so they decided to
establish one permanent capital city to meet

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in instead.

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Article I, Section Eight of the Constitution
states that the nation’s capital must be

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created as a district that encircles the city,
which can’t be bigger than 100 square-miles,

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or 259-square-kilometers, and that land must
be ceded by one or more states to create it.

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Representatives had landed on two potential
sites in Pennsylvania, one near Philadelphia,

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and one in Lancaster, presumably to capitalize
on the untapped Amish labor market for building

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all those rotundas.

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The problem was, the convention’s southern
delegates resented having the nation’s capital

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in a state they considered the North—especially
because Alexander Hamilton had been haranguing

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southern states to pay back their Revolutionary
War debts at the convention, even though the

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southern states insisted that they were totally
good for it and to just chill out, man.

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Things weren’t looking good, so Hamilton
thought up a good compromise that would appease

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everyone in the moment and annoy everyone
in the long term.

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Known as the Compromise of 1790, the capital
would be established in the South in exchange

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for Southern states indirectly paying off
the war debts of Northern states.

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George Washington suggested the unoccupied
parts of Maryland and Virginia on the Potomac

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river as a good compromise, because neither
the North or South really wanted it—and

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what better place to put the nation’s capital
than a piece of land nobody wants.

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At the convention, Virginia and Maryland agreed
to donate those lands to the US government

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in a perfect diamond shape that looked like
this.

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DC became established as the required 100
square-mile, or 259-square-kilometer, well,

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square, that included the cities of Alexandria
and Arlington within its borders.

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Roughly 60% of the city would be located in
Maryland, and 40% in Virginia.

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By 1800, the move was complete and DC kept
the same shape for 50 years, until changed

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by America’s third favorite pastime, racism.

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Trouble started a-brewing on the Virginia
side in the 20s, with Alexandria experiencing

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quite an economic decline because the city—much
like climate change or members of Congress’

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children—was neglected by members of Congress.

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DC still didn’t have its own set of laws,
which meant that Virginia laws governed the

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Virginia half, and Maryland laws governed
the Maryland half—which, from an urban planning

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perspective, and also from a regular perspective,
seems bad in one city, let alone the nation’s

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capital.

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Plus, both states’ laws were frozen in 1801,
with zero DC citizens having any political

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representation—either in Congress or in
a special local government.

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And the feds’ ignorance of the consequences
of their actions proved to be their downfall:

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the district’s five jurisdictions—which
included Alexandria City, Arlington County,

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Georgetown, Washington City, and Washington
County—didn’t agree on how to sort out

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this negligence, so they each took different
courses of action.

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As Lincoln would say 10 years later, “a
house divided cannot stand.”

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Alexandria City and Arlington County became
disillusioned by being a part of DC, because

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the federal government had decreed that buildings
could only be constructed north of the Potomac—which

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effectively shut Alexandria out of having
any new construction or industry.

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Meanwhile, DC East was thriving.

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This meant Alexandria relied on a brilliant
economic development tool called enslaving

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people, and they were worried the United States
might, for some reason, decide that wasn’t

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cool anymore—so they wanted to rejoin Virginia
to keep slavery legal.

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Although it took 10 years, Alexandria voted
to petition the state of Virginia to take

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back the land it had donated to DC, which
is known as “retrogression” and seems…

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familiar.

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And despite the fact that leaving DC would
increase taxes by $20,000 each year, a majority

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of residents made the classic American decision
that they liked racism more than money, and

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voted to leave the district.

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Both Virginia and, surprisingly, Congress
approved the retrocession in 1846—probably

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because they were too busy trying to keep
the United States you know, united, and didn’t

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care if some whiny racist babies wanted to
be reabsorbed into Virginia, as long as they

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were still part of the union, which meant
that no part of Virginia was part of DC anymore.

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Since then, the metro area has expanded exponentially,
but DC itself has stayed the same size—this

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weird half square, half squiggle—because
Maryland won’t donate any more land to the

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district, and Virginia hasn’t budged on
giving back the land they pledged and then

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took back from the city.

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And even if the feds wanted to expand DC’s
borders, which they don’t, they’d have

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to pass it through Congress, which they couldn't
even if they wanted thanks to the 109th word

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in this video.

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And whether you live in the nation’s wonky
capital or the lost city of El Dorado, just

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