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Washington, D.C.: The Political Geography of a Federal Capital

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

J. Valerie Fifer
J. Valerie Fifer
Affiliation:
J. Valerie Fifer is Head of the Department of Geography and Deputy Dean of the School of Humanities at Goldsmiths' College,University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW.
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Extract

The political status of the District of Columbia is once again the subject of debate in the United States. The District, which forms Washington's central city enclave, an area of some 69 square miles, is closer now than ever before to achieving its oldest political ambition, that of full representation in Congress. A bill to allow such representation by Constitutional amendment was passed for the first time by both the House and the Senate in 1978. Since then, State legislatures have begun to consider ratification of the Amendment with the result that this long-standing issue has entered a new phase.

Throughout its existence, Washington, D.C. has had a more distinctive and more complex political geography than is commonly supposed. Until the recent decision to support the measure, Congress had consistently opposed the idea of giving full voting rights to the District of Columbia. When the city of Washington was created at the end of the eighteenth century, the legal detachment of a Federal District from the States by means of cession was regarded as crucial to its future role as the permanent seat of government, and to the exclusive legislative control Congress was to exercise over such a district. As a result, the lack of Congressional representation became an early source of discontent, and for nearly two hundred years, D.C. has been trying to escape this particular consequence of its unique position within the federal structure.

Washington, D.C. has been called “both the most American and the least American city in the United States,” and this paradox is apparent in the States' often ambivalent views of the nation's capital.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , April 1981 , pp. 5 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 Fifer, J. V., “Unity by Inclusion: Core Area and Federal State at American Independence,” Geographical Journal, 142 (1976), 462–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Green, C. M., Washington: A History of the Capital, 1800–1950, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 1962–63), 1, 173–74Google Scholar.

3 National Capital Regional Planning Council, A Policies Plan for the Year 2000: The Nation's Capital (Washington, D.C.: National Capital Regional Planning Council, 1961)Google Scholar. This study was based on 1950s population trends, and remains useful for purposes of comparison.

4 Population statistics, U.S. Bureau of the Census; also the Municipal Planning Office, Washington, D.C.

5 Green, C. M., The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation's Capital (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 53Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., pp. 168–69.

7 Thomas, J. C. M., “Washington,” in Contemporary Metropolitan America, Association of American Geographers Comparative Metropolitan Analysis Project (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1976), 4, 301Google Scholar; see also Davis, J. T., “Sources of Variation in Housing Values in Washington, D.C.” in Black America: Geographic Perspectives, eds Ernst, R. T. and Hugg, L. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Press, 1976), pp. 146–56Google Scholar.

8 See, for example, Pierce, N. R. and Barone, M., “Washington, D.C.” in The Mid-Atlantic States of America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977)Google Scholar, “The School Dilemma,” and “A Tour of the District,” pp. 40–49. Also on related aspects, F. Ladd, “Black Perspectives on American Cities,” and Lewis, G. M., “Geographical Aspects of Race-Related Violence in the United States” in The American Environment: Perceptions and Policies, eds Watson, J. Wreford and O'Riordan, T. (London: John Wiley, 1976), pp. 133–43, 115–32Google Scholar.

9 Fifer, J. V., “Metro for Washington,” Geographical Magazine, 51 (1979), 395–97Google Scholar; and “Underground Movemennt – Washington-style,” Modern Transport, 8 (1979), 209–13Google Scholar.

10 The term “Sun Belt” appears to have been introduced in 1968 by Kevin Phillips, an American lawyer and political columnist who wished to draw attention to the new political significance of a belt of States from Florida to southern California. It represented a zone of population increase, economic growth, and substantial federal spending. Other writers have elaborated the idea, and the term Sunbelt has become well established, in and out of politics. From coast to coast, most of the Sunbelt lies below the 37th parallel, and represents a Western-New South-Old South tier of considerable internal regional variety. The Sunbelt includes 15 States: southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

11 Nie, N. H., Verba, S., and Petrocik, J. R., The Changing American Voter (Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

12 Brunn, S. D., Geography and Politics in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1974)Google Scholar; McKenna, G., American Politics: Ideals and Realities (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976Google Scholar). See also Taylor, P. J. and Johnston, R. J., Geography of Elections (Harmonds-worth: Penguin Books, 1979)Google Scholar, and Johnston, R. J., Political, Electoral and Spatial Systems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

13 Source: Community Services Administration.

14 Gottmann, J., Virginia in Our Century (Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1969), pp. 607–11Google Scholar.