I’ve been wondering this for a while now. I’ve always wondered why Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States over New York, New York. New York holds a massive amount of history from the 13 colonies to present day. I feel like a lot of US’s history comes from New York. Political history, economical history, sufferings, military history, cultural history and so on. New York has been there since the beginning, and if you ask anyone that lives outside of the US to name one US state, they will most likely name New York first out of any other state. So how come a state which has been a part of the US before it even became independent and holds so much sacred history and holds one of the most known territory in the US with such high popularity not the capital of the United States? Isn’t that what a national capital is supposed to represent? A historical piece of land as a portrayal for government representation and illustration? I feel like New York holds all of that if not more than what our current capital holds. Not saying that our capitals should be changed, but it’s a bit weird to think that New York has been such a sacred piece of history and popularity for the United States, you’d think that our founding fathers would chose land in New York to be our national capital.
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!