AHC:Largest North Amer City within 500 miles of Black Hills.

With a POD after 1700, does anyone see a way to have the Largest City in North America be within 500 miles of Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota?

As a guide, the edges of the circle are rough from the Regina, Saskatchewan to the northern Edge of Texas north to south and from Minneapolis to South Central Idaho East to West.

The standard "No nuclear war" rules apply.
 
Just a guess.....make Omaha Nebraska a major armaments and munitions center during WWII. On the premise that it is so far inland that no potential enemy aircraft could ever hit this area. Have heavy tank, artillery, aircraft, and small arms factories build up in the area. Have massive housing projects be built from 1942-1945. In the '50's, encourage consumer goods manufacturing such as: Frigidaire, Maytag, Zenith (TV), Ford, Chrysler, GM, Motorola, Carrier (Air Conditioning) etc move/build factories there. Build suburbs within commuting distance of industrial area. Have more food processing (slaughtering, packing) plants there (for low income/education people to gain entry level employment). I know this idea is after 1900, but prior to 1880's before railroad, most of the Great Plains was called the American Desert so it was looked at as a wasteland. Just my two cents. Joho:)
 
With a POD after 1700, does anyone see a way to have the Largest City in North America be within 500 miles of Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota?

As a guide, the edges of the circle are rough from the Regina, Saskatchewan to the northern Edge of Texas north to south and from Minneapolis to South Central Idaho East to West.

The standard "No nuclear war" rules apply.

That's a toughie. Hmm, spitballin', maybe you need some British South scenario where Canada is part of the US and the deep South remains British, so that center of American gravity remains more northerly? Still need more than that, though.
 
Honestly, I don't think it can be done... Any city in that area is going to have to compete against NYC and Mexico City. The river systems there just don't have the oomph to support the 8+ million you'd need to beat those two cities or even the 4+ million if you cut those two in half, let alone the 20+ million of their respective metro areas. The Missouri is an incredibly wild and unpredictable river and the Colorado just isn't big enough in the circle. Heck, I have doubts if the Mississippi is big enough to support that many people in one area if we also figure in other cities along its banks.
 
Well, Minneapolis is right on the edge, and the largest one in the area. It could be a bit bigger if you have it annex St. Paul, and maybe Bloomington sometime post-war. But that probably still won't even break a million. Even if every single suburb and town in the metro area became part of the city, it still just gets above Chicago.

Other than that there's Omaha and Denver -- not sure how to wank those.

You could also shrink some other cities to help.

If you prevent the New York boroughs from unifying, then each of those cities will be relatively small (at least no longer the top city). But, you'd still have about twenty more cities you also have to shrink.

But then... you said North America, which means Mexico City is in the running. As well as numerous other cities in Mexico and Canada. I can't think of anything that would shrink those.

Yes, I really can't see a way to make this happen.
 
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