Washington
Jefferson's 1790 dinner deal placed the capital here; L'Enfant's grid made ideology visible. Federal share dropped from 40% to 31% GDP since 2010. Now diversifying—or declining.
Washington exists because of a dinner party deal. In 1790, Thomas Jefferson brokered a compromise over supper: Alexander Hamilton would get federal assumption of state debts, and the South would get the capital. George Washington selected the site on the Potomac—at the river's navigation head where oceangoing ships could reach, midway between North and South, positioned as what he called 'the gateway to the interior.' The city was designed before anyone lived there.
Pierre L'Enfant's 1790 plan broke European convention. Instead of placing the leader's palace on the commanding heights, he positioned Congress there—the Capitol on its hill, diagonal avenues radiating outward like spokes, streets named for states and letters and numbers. It was geometry as ideology: the people's legislature at the center, the grid extending democratically in every direction. L'Enfant was fired for refusing to compromise, but his framework endured.
For two centuries, Washington's economy was the government itself. By 2010, nearly 40% of the region's GDP came directly from federal spending. Defense contractors, lobbying firms, think tanks, and media organizations clustered around the power center. The government was the keystone species, and everything else was symbiont. Unlike other American cities, Washington never industrialized in the conventional sense—its product was policy.
Today the region generates $541 billion in gross metropolitan product, ranking fifth nationally. But the dependency model is shifting. Amazon's HQ2 in Arlington will bring 50,000 jobs over 20 years. The federal share of regional GDP dropped from 40% to 31% between 2010 and 2017. Technology, tourism, hospitality, and bioscience have grown to diversify the base. Yet 2025 brought warning signs: federal employment in the DMV fell 4.5% in six months, venture capital flows slowed dramatically, and homes for sale jumped 64%.
By 2026, Washington will test an old question: what happens to a capital city when its patron shrinks? The grid L'Enfant drew remains, but the economy it serves is fragmenting. Amazon versus bureaucracy. Tech versus policy. The dinner party compromise still echoes.