George Washington's Washington

In George Washington's Washington Adam Costanzo aims to assess how government influenced development of the national capital to 1840. He explores the relationship among federal officials, local elites, and the District of Columbia's physical spaces, especially its important public buildings. Costanzo contends that, when dealing with city matters, government officials often rigidly adhered to ideology. George Washington envisioned a magnificent capital city that “suited a strong American empire built on commerce and western expansion” (p. 28). Congress ceded power to the president to develop the district. Commissioners he subsequently appointed failed to raise adequate funds through speculation in district land. Although Congress took legislative control of the district beginning in 1801, Thomas Jefferson's political philosophy led him to abandon Washington's vision. Desiring a national capital befitting an agrarian-centered limited government, Jefferson championed neoclassical designs for the district's few public buildings but rejected calls for the central government to fund development projects

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