[flavor8]

I don't think there's any circle you can draw around federal buildings that wouldn't include residential buildings also.

If you declared all federal buildings to be part of the district (and everything else Maryland) it would get messy fast:

+ What about commercial buildings that the feds lease? (There are many of these.)

+ What about federal buildings which are leased to commercial organizations? (Not sure if there are any, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

+ Would federal DC have its own first responders specifically to service federal buildings?

+ Would DC pay Maryland taxes for road maintenance between its "islands" of office space?

Etc.

[techdragon]

The district would be subservient to the state for taxes, lease contracts etc. but it's entirely possible to treat the individual buildings as "sovereign territory of the District of Columbia" just like how the little townhouse in London is Ecuadorian territory, and thousands of other embassies around the world like it.

Once you walked off the sidewalk, or off the third floor elevators, or through that door, etc, you would be on "federal turf" so to speak. It's not about a geographical circle.

[jmccree]

None of these are particularly new questions. There are federal buildings and federal leased space in every major city across the US. The feds have their own Federal Protective Service Police that respond to incidents on federal property in major cities nation wide. Fire/EMS is usually handled by the locals.

The core national mall area is already protected by US Park Police, it would be possible to create a core DC area as a national park and return the rest of all land to the states. Federal buildings on land returned to the states would be treated like any other federal building in a state. There are plenty of federal buildings in NoVa and Maryland already.

[BHSPitMonkey]

How would that differ from embassies?