Trying again because basic boring hackers flag killed my post on the wikipedia article. This is the most interesting thing to happen in a while and should gratify your intellectual curiosity and is obviously worthy of discussion.
I haven't been to Capitol Hill in a long time, but I remember that it was a series of plateaus atop a hill, filled with mom-and-pop stores with apartments on top. I bet that it helps these folks to be able to use their local terrain against the central city authority. I also bet that this means that the boundary of the autonomous zone is not going to change much during its lifetime.