Earlier quoted context omitted.
Engineers of all people should know that scaling is best achieved by distributed systems.
If only there were 50 smaller units of analysis beside the District of Columbia to which to distribute political power! Admittedly, this many years on, it's hard to introduce fresh concepts. The only way for such smaller units of analysis to achieve any gravitas would be to acquire the notoriety of the States. . .
US states are too large themselves. For this to work, it needs to start literally at the very bottom - a local assembly on the block / neighborhood. From there, it can be scaled up indefinitely in a multi-layer federation.