How beautiful and relatively easy driving and/or flying in or out of the city is (outside of rush hour). At least if you're coming/going from the VA side. I will die on the hill that the flight into DCA on a clear day, is one of the most beautiful landing views of any airport on earth. Same with driving out to VA/Alexandria on the Arland D Williams Memorial Bridge. It's literally a stunning view as you're crossing out of the city. Normally you're met with project buildings, industrial zones, etc. as you cross over the city limits.

Manhattan is a classic example, you have to drive through the valley of ashes and industrial wasteland every time you come or go from the city. There's like 30 minutes of driving through absolute hellscapes before you get to any form of nice / inhabitable suburbs or greenery. Flying in is the same. Whether you come into JFK / Newark / LaGuardia you're going to have to trek through a lot of mess to get into Manhattan. Also hard to get much of a pretty view of the skyline when you're stuck in traffic under the tunnel!