Wasn’t the whole idea for DC not to be a state and be separate from them.
When you go back to the late 1700s....DC was a paper concept, which was firmly attached to land speculation. The original idea was that the seat of the national government would be there, and rich folks would want to own property in this national capital (like Paris or London, at the time).
The original district was 100 square miles, and the stones to mark the district were laid out in 1791. If you look at the original district...roughly 10-percent of it was swampy land.
Because of the slave trade being still allowed in Alexandria and Arlington....Congress deemed it necessary to dump those sections of the district back to Virginia in 1846.
The thing is...on the topic of statehood...if you go to the upperclass west-side of DC....no one cares. On the east-side (the poor part of the district), this is used as some fake hyped up political topic to keep the poor in this area all aggravated and talking about this....rather than real issues (like the lack of police protection).
I lived for 3.5 years in the Arlington area and it just amazed me how many little odd events happened in DC, and the national news just skipped right over them. Crime, corruption, and just bizarre events.
Yes. DC was defined in the Constitution as a Federal enclave. Amend the Constitution to make DC a state? Don’t think so.