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I think this is actually a fair question. I mean, it's not like the Potomac isn't navigable -- how else did they get the U.S.S. Barry up there? And it's not like other cities haven't done more with less -- look at Sacramento or Stockton, CA, or Albany, NY. I understand that D.C. has never been a big manufacturing center or anything like that, but you'd think there'd still be something -- even just a few berths. I'm just curious why this development never happened.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Because Baltimore with its large harbor on the Bay was better equipped for a port facility, and it's so close to DC that it probably wasn’t necessary to construct a large port facility that Baltimore could facilitate better. Also Baltimore by nature is more accommodating to large industrial areas, where DC has a completely different dynamic as a city.
And lots of port cities along the Mississippi. Even Sacramento has a port, but the Sacramento river has often filled with sediment and had to be dredged. Lack of a big port in DC has nothing to do with white vs. blue collar (some people know little of DC beyond downtown, Georgetown, Foggy Bottom, etc.). As noted, it has been more of a port in past years.
During the colonial period Alexandria and Blandensburg were major seaports, but the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers became too shallow from silt and boats kept getting larger. The amount of dredging necessary to get cargo ships that far up the Potomac would be very cost prohibitive. The Chesapeake shipping channel is at least 50 feet deep. In the dry summer you can practically walk across the Potomac in Alexandria.
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