The capital of the United States is a city and not all presidents have enjoyed living there:

Many previous presidents, especially Republicans, have long used Washington as a metaphor for all that is wrong with America. The city is an easy target in many federal campaigns, from both parties. And for all their efforts to get to the city as president, many commanders in chief often seem desperate to leave whenever they can. Franklin Roosevelt spent long periods at Warm Springs in Georgia, where he’d ease lifelong physical repercussions from polio and at his home at Hyde Park, New York. Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush were always keen to swap the White House for their Texas ranches.

Trump made little effort to embrace the town, getting out to play golf at his course in Virginia or heading to his properties in Florida and New Jersey. Biden spends most weekends in his beloved Delaware. But Barack Obama bucked the trend, becoming the rare president to set up home in the capital after his tenure ended instead of returning to his previous adopted hometown, Chicago.

Some presidents have tried to treat DC like home while in office. Theodore Roosevelt went rock climbing in Rock Creek Park, and decades later, Ronald Reagan saddled up to burnish his cowboy persona and went horse riding there. Abraham Lincoln used to escape the swampy summers to a cottage in Northwest DC where he’d also visit with wounded Civil War soldiers. And of course, he went to the theater at least once, with tragic results. John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who served as naval officers, loved to take the presidential yacht, the USS Sequoia, down the Potomac River. The vessel was decommissioned by Jimmy Carter, a former submariner who was perhaps more comfortable beneath the waves…

Presidents have also often ventured out of the White House for refreshment. Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and Warren Harding are all said to have patronized Old Ebbitt Grill, which is open still just around the corner. During the Clinton and Obama administrations it was not unusual to see the presidential motorcade idling outside some of the city’s top restaurants in Georgetown and downtown. Trump, however, rarely went anywhere to socialize apart from his former hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, whose bars and restaurants became a hot spot for administration officials and Trump-world figures like Rudy Giuliani and a must-see for MAGA tourists in the capital.

Americans as a whole have concerns about big cities. The country has a majority suburban population and often associates cities with particular opportunities and issues.

And the United States has a unique capital arrangement in that the country’s largest city – New York City, the #1 ranked global city – is not the political center. Originally, the city sat between the northern and southern portions of the first states. It was founded after a number of other cities. It could become a political center even as it embodied characteristics of other American cities.

In looking at the list of facilities in the presidential library system, few are located in the biggest cities in the United States. Some are in smaller big cities while more recent facilities are in big cities. Perhaps presidents as a group have not been urban dwellers – and this should not be too surprising given that the United States has never had a majority of its residents living in the biggest cities.