A City on Grand Isle County

Isaac Beach

Banned
Hello all, I'm making a map for the Map of the Month contest, and it's going to be an inordinately wanked Vermont. Something I wanted to do for this map, aside making Burlington a proper city and having Vermont annex Upstate New York in a bout of geopolitical irony, is to build a densely packed city on Grand Isle County and the surrounding banks. I've been calling this conceptual settlement 'Hero City' by virtue of the fact there are two towns in the county called North and South Hero, and I thought that were they to consolidate it'd make for a cool city name. (The alternative is of course Grand Isle City)
Part of the conceit is that it becomes a way-point between Montreal, Ottawa and Burlington, and becomes the New York of Vermont with low tariffs and taxes, and gets a maritime boost by virtue of an expanded Champlain Canal, among other things. I know you're not meant to do this in respect to timelines, but I've been working backwards somewhat to justify it's existence. Rule of cool, I suppose.

Now the tiny archipelago is only about 82 square miles, or 212 square kilometers. (I'll be using kilometers because I prefer them) If we use Monaco's ridiculous population density of 18,713/km2 on all 212 kilometers we get a population of 3,967,156. So just short of 4 million. That's probably more than a bit unrealistic, so if we go with another comparatively dense city state, Singapore, with 7,797/km2 we get 1,652,964. Better, if still pushing the edge of viability. Finally, if we use Long Island's population density of 2,190.28, we get a population of 457,979.36, small but perhaps more realistic.

My question is at which point am I taking the piss? Long Island, Singapore or Monaco? Half a million, 1.65 million, or 3.96 million? This is of course excluding the surrounding banks which will likely boost each estimate by half a million.
In the confines of this TL, there is more impetus for such a settlement by virtue of an independent Vermont stuck between a more turbulent USA and a somewhat stagnant Canada, and Vermont as a whole is much more populous. However I want to maintain a semblance of realism even if this part of it (A city on Grand Isle County) isn't totally plausible. So any advice as to it's viability and size would be welcome and appreciated.

Thanks for reading my rambles.
 
Long Island numbers are probably the most realistic. Singapore is a major international trade hub on the world's busiest shipping lane and Monaco, despite having a high density, has fewer than 50,000 people. And both of those locations have much more geographic limitations on expansion than Grand Isle or Long Island.

First I think we'd need to delay the completion of the Erie canal by a few years while an expanded Champlain/Chambly Canal is finished early. This will make the new city the hub for people traveling the Great Lakes and the Michigan territory. Then a railroad connection is needed as soon as possible. Since Albany is now somewhat secondary the headquarters of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad can be set in Hero instead (although they're still likely to lose it to NYC eventually).

Then in the post civil-war period the city and surrounding lake take on a Monaco-like approach of becoming a destination for New England elite to vacation. If NYC is slower to improve sanitation around the turn of the century it will help as well since it will encourage people to head out of the city in the summer months and Hero will be easily reachable with nice amenities.

I think that 400k with an additional 500k in the surrounding area is aggressive but certainly doable. That's still a huge city for the area.
 
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