I'm not sure how to phrase my question exactly, but reading a few Wikipedia pages on Washington DC didn't really enlighten me.
I guess my confusion is because, if you had told me that a new democratic nation was going to set up a capital city and that residents of that city would never be allowed to participate in a significant part of the democratic process, then I'd expect that they would have prevented anyone from declaring residency there in the first place.
Why didn't they establish something as is done in the U.S. military where you might end up living anywhere but where you can declare yourself to be a resident of a specific state for voting purposes? Were there residents from the very beginning who helped establish the nation but who then couldn't vote for members of congress? If so, why wasn't this considered a huge problem and why wasn't something done to accommodate those people from the start?
Alternatively, if they wanted DC to be a separate entity existing outside of any state, why didn't they just draw the boundaries smaller, excluding any residences at the time, and disallowing anyone from establishing residence there going forward?
Mostly I'm just trying to get a sense of how this situation evolved over time and how we ever ended up in a situation where so many of people are not represented in Congress.
if you had told me that a new democratic nation was going to set up a capital city and that residents of that city would never be allowed to participate in a significant part of the democratic process, then I'd expect that they would have prevented anyone from declaring residency there in the first place.
Opportunity can trump the desire for representation.
Georgetown and Alexandria were already established towns when DC was founded. I'm sure there were plenty of people in those towns who were unhappy with their situations, and when they heard that dozens of influential, perhaps rich politicians would be moving in right next door, the chance to better themselves must have seemed more appealing than representation.
Think about it, all of those Representatives, Senators, Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, etc are going to need places to live, places to drink, places to eat, etc. And not just politicians either, scores of workers would be needed to build the Capitol and cabinet department offices, and all of those people would need goods and services as well.
Not everyone could live in Georgetown, and Alexandria is 8 miles each way plus you have to cross a river, so housing would have to be built for all of these people as well. As more and more houses and businesses popped up, it became a legitimate city in its own right, and kept growing.
Even today, when MD or VA are just minutes away now that we have cars, people still choose to live in DC to be close to their jobs, or because they think the amenities offered in DC are better than elsewhere. Yeah, we lose our representation, but many people consider that an acceptable price to pay. In reality, Congressional representation is not considered particularly important by a surprising number of people, especially when you consider that midterm election turnout is only about 36%, so often times less than half of the US even participates in choosing their representative anyway, effectively disenfranchising themselves.