Certainly, that's why Washington D.C. was built, so that the gentry didn't have to go to sewer-like New York to run the country. (Actually they moved to Philadelphia first.)
> Certainly, that's why Washington D.C. was built, so that the gentry didn't have to go to sewer-like New York to run the country. (Actually they moved to Philadelphia first.).
They didn't mind the size of New York or Philadelphia. Cities were very small in 18th-century America. In 1790, New York City's population was only twice that of Charleston.
The reason for DC's location on the Potomac was that the Southern states wanted the capital to be in the South.
The temporary capital of Philadelphia posed an additional problem, in that it was located in a free state. George Washington had to rotate his slaves through Philadelphia while he was President, so that they would not stay long enough to be emancipated.
