AHC: establish a city OTL after a POD

Hello friends, I am curious and I have not found any post that explains it. My curiosity is how would you do to establish a city after an alternate POD? [1]

For example, let's say that Philadelphia is established as the capital of the United States. Could there still be a city or town in the same place as Washington DC?

If Mexico retains the northern territories (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etc.) could a city still be founded in the same place as Phoenix, Arizona?

¿Boca Raton, Florida?

What would you do to establish a city? perhaps with a similar population than in OTL.

Maybe they could see their alternative stories and see if any city or town would still exist post-pod

[1] Recommendation: The City must be established after a POD. Example: POD 1812 No War 1812: Phoenix (1881).

Or is there a thread where you have already asked this question and have answers? If so, I appreciate links.
 
Well, Washington DC occupies a nice place on the Potomac River, but if it weren't founded as the national capital, would simply be a Maryland suburb to Alexandria, Virginia.

Quite a few good locations in the Mexican Far North were already occupied by American Indian sites (and the same goes with many cities east of the Mississippi). Places like San Diego and the Bay Area will always be very strategic locations for Euroamericans. Something in the area of Phoenix, AZ would likely become an important site as well.

Really, certain places are predestined to have a major city built on the site if Euroamericans settle there.
 
For cases like Phoenix, they would certainly be. Much about the only big change would just be their names. So it wouldn't be called Phoenix (nor Fénix for that matter, if the area remains Mexican), but there would still be a city in the same area.
 
Yeah, Washington's site isn't too bad as a transport center, even if it may be centered around Alexandria than Washington Proper. If the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is built, it'd be a nice little seaport to the Ohio and a big rail center between north and south as Baltimore handles major shipping and portage to the rest of the world.

Not as big as OTL, of course, but absolutely still big-city/noteworthy tier. Not many realize Jefferson and his party purposefully stunted Washington's growth to keep commercial interests out and it a small town "for the people", hence the lack of the O&C canal panning out, for example.
 
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