American Cities that could have been more prominent
- Thread starter AltSptHst
- Start date
Boston Massachusetts. If the Erie canal wasn't built then New York wouldn't be the undisputed economic powerhouse of the Northeast and Boston would be the nearest major port to Europe and have the shortest traveltimes to europe via ship and also airplane when the time comes, making it one of (if not the) pre-eminent transportation center between the United States and Europe. It also could have annexed cambridge and got Harvard and MIT back. Also if NASA comes to the city during the kenneddy years because boston was one of the candidate cities I do believe.
Another is Philadelphia if the capital had remained there instead of moving south.
Another is Philadelphia if the capital had remained there instead of moving south.
Without a doubt. Wisconsin had a lot of potential and I'm always surprised at the high profile that Milwaukee seems to have for its size. Too bad it had to be so close to Chicago....
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I've been to those coasts and thought to myself "this would be a great place to visit were it not for those horrible roads". Some good road straightening would make it much, much easier. I mean, honestly, has nobody ever heard of tunnels and bridges?! Cut those corners and tunnel through those mountains straight to the coast! Of course, I get the feeling that many people enjoy the isolation and wouldn't have it any other way so who knows....
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In terms of the whole Pacific Northwest thing I wonder if we might get a real curve ball through a border at the Columbia. A British Oregon is going to have the same security and military problems developing the Ft. Vancouver site as the States will have with Portland (and boy is that whole river going to be 'interesting' if it's a border given its significance to inland transportation and the quite likely tense situation).
I really do wonder about Seattle and Vancouver without a border. Vancouver at least had inland access up the Fraser, but Seattle seems needlessly inaccessible if there is no real military threat. I wonder if Bellingham and or Anacortes might end up drawing a lot of what went into Seattle and doesn't head south to Ft Vancouver (I wonder if someone would deal with the proximity of the Vancouver's to each other if they are both British and significant sites). It's definitely more accessible to the open ocean, reasonably sheltered, doesn't have Victoria's isolation from the mainland and is closer to both Victoria and Vancouver. I see a definite potential for Seattle to end up the back water of the region (as in smaller than Victoria), with Vancouver probably being the big center that is by modern times starting to absorb the secondary port in the area of Bellingham or Anacortes.
On the American side I tend to agree that Coos Bay is going to be more than it is, but at the same time it is very constricted and inaccessible. My best guess is that Coos is the big winner, but that Portland isn't going to shrink as much as we might expect and that they will end up rather similar to each other, with a very real possibility that the total population of Oregon will be not all that much changed from OTL.
I really do wonder about Seattle and Vancouver without a border. Vancouver at least had inland access up the Fraser, but Seattle seems needlessly inaccessible if there is no real military threat. I wonder if Bellingham and or Anacortes might end up drawing a lot of what went into Seattle and doesn't head south to Ft Vancouver (I wonder if someone would deal with the proximity of the Vancouver's to each other if they are both British and significant sites). It's definitely more accessible to the open ocean, reasonably sheltered, doesn't have Victoria's isolation from the mainland and is closer to both Victoria and Vancouver. I see a definite potential for Seattle to end up the back water of the region (as in smaller than Victoria), with Vancouver probably being the big center that is by modern times starting to absorb the secondary port in the area of Bellingham or Anacortes.
On the American side I tend to agree that Coos Bay is going to be more than it is, but at the same time it is very constricted and inaccessible. My best guess is that Coos is the big winner, but that Portland isn't going to shrink as much as we might expect and that they will end up rather similar to each other, with a very real possibility that the total population of Oregon will be not all that much changed from OTL.
Richmond, VA - had Virginia not left the Union, or the city not burned down during the Civil War, I couyld easily see it today as a further extention on the BosWash megalopolis, that with a booming and growing Richmond, could run all the way to Charlotte.
Speaking of the effects of a US-Canadian border at the Columbia, while it might be good news for Oregon, it would be mostly bad news for Vancouver BC.
FDW
Banned
No, it would be bad news for Seattle. Seattle's Location isn't exactly an ideal location for a port, and it only won because of the fact that it was probably the best of bad bunch of ports on Pudget Sound that were available to the US. In the event that the border of the US and Canada is on the Columbia, Vancouver has the best position on the sound, so it would be even bigger than OTL.
FDW
Banned
What made you think that? Vancouver has the mouth of the Fraser River (Which is fairly good route into the interior) in it's proximity, and is slight closer to the strait of Juan de Fuca than Seattle is.
1: The fact that Seattle is nearby one of the largest naval bases in the US.
2: The fact that Seattle has a deepwater port and is next to lake Washington.
3. The fact that Vancouver is smaller than Seattle (which is obviously do to it being a Canadian port rather than an American one).
4: The fact that I have been to Seattle and I have never been to Vancouver.
So yeah, interesting. Just goes to show that borders matter, even friendly ones.
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FDW
Banned
Yeah, even though Vancouver is smaller than Seattle, it still has about 2.5 million people in the metro (which at the scale we're talking about, means that Vancouver isn't much below Seattle).
And yeah, this modem also applies elsewhere too. Tijuana wouldn't have been able to grow into a twin of San Diego if it didn't have the US-Mexico border separating them.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Yes but St. lLouis is much much bigger than Cairo although much more cargo goes by Cairo. hHow much cargo goes down the Missouri?
I have to agree completely. Between inland access and shelter Vancouver is really pretty good. Seattle is out of the way and doesn't have much of anything on the land side.
Like I said above though, I could still see a secondary but still significant port developing south of Vancouver. Even then though Bellingham or Anacortes seem more attractive, being sheltered but with easy access to the Juan de Fuca without the trip up Puget Sound. Especially in the 20th century there is a distinct possibility that ocean access starts to look more significant than how sheltered the harbour is; I could definitely see things like Deltaport being much bigger and quite a bit further south. I certainly can't see the Tswassen terminal as such being built with Boundary Bay being solidly Canadian (if I had to guess Port Angeles would be a much bigger ferry terminal, with a proper highway and that the big Vancouver terminal would be at White Rock, while Anacortes would largely be determined by what happens with a city there.
PS: on that note, while I wouldn't expect a major center, Port Angeles does seem likely to be bigger than OTL, being the obvious route between British Oregon and the island. I also wonder about Olympia (seems likely to still end of the capital), if Seattle isn't a major port its location (or Tacoma's) probably looks more attractive for settlement.
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FDW
Banned
Well, by Vancouver, I meant a city somewhere within it's metropolitan area, as Vancouver proper is actually a bit removed from the sound and it wasn't even the first city founded in the area (I believe New Westminster was). I think White Rock would be a good location for said port.
In regards to Seattle, rather than seeing one huge metropolis, what you might see is a number of distinct towns within the region, with the largest of the bunch maybe located in what we know IOTL as West Seattle.
As for a capital of British Oregon, it depends on where the provincial boundaries are set up.
There were a lot of movie-type people going through Flagstaff at the time, as it was the last overnight stop on the ATSF rail line before Los Angles. In the Lowell Observatory guest book, Albert Einstein and Carry Grant are a few pages from each other.
Flagstaff would be a great place to shoot a move (especially a Western!), but unlike LA, there weren't any oil barons around to support big-budget productions. The only real industry at the time was logging and copper mining.
Tulsa as the capital of Sequoyah....I'm feeling another "state capital stolen" story(oh, and with a separate State of Sequoyah, Guthrie most likely remains the capital of Oklahoma...). Hmm...Tulsa becomes Sequoyah state capital, then the oil boom....maybe make a successful bid for the Olympics at some point? No joke there are businessmen in Tulsa currently trying to launch a bid for the 2020 olympics....
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Actually with Muskogee being the Capital of Sequoyah you would likely see Bartlesville being the number 2 city in Sequoyah. With those two towns you have no reason for Tulsa to be as big as it is. I could also see the Kerr Mclellen Navigation project ending in Muskogee instead of Catoosa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartlesville,_Oklahoma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr-McClellan_Arkansas_River_Navigation_System
Here's some ideas:
1.)Denton, TX-This is a city of about 100,000 people IOTL but could easily be the size of Garland or Plano.
2.)Tillamook, OR-This city had a LOT of potential to rival Medford or Vancouver, WA, in terms of population and is already well-known for its farming....the city could spread out to most of the valley and get about 70,000 people and still get to keep some of the farms, if done in the right way.
3.)Kalispell, MT-Talk about missed opprotunity! This city sits not too far from the heart of Flathead Valley; ~200 sq. mi. of flat land just waiting to be developed. Under the right circumstances, this city could become the largest one in all of Montana! 160,000 or so isn't all that farfetched, and certainly, 70-80k or so is well within reach.
4.)Nashville, TN-Kind of a toughie, but if you can somehow diminish the influence of Memphis, there's lots of potential for a city with the size of today's Baltimore or Austin; diversifying the music industry and some industrialization projects might help.
5.)Omaha, NE-Get some more railroads up there and maybe attract some real cheap housing and you've got potential for a Columbus-sized metropolis; being right next to the Missouri River really would pay off, as well.
1.)Denton, TX-This is a city of about 100,000 people IOTL but could easily be the size of Garland or Plano.
2.)Tillamook, OR-This city had a LOT of potential to rival Medford or Vancouver, WA, in terms of population and is already well-known for its farming....the city could spread out to most of the valley and get about 70,000 people and still get to keep some of the farms, if done in the right way.
3.)Kalispell, MT-Talk about missed opprotunity! This city sits not too far from the heart of Flathead Valley; ~200 sq. mi. of flat land just waiting to be developed. Under the right circumstances, this city could become the largest one in all of Montana! 160,000 or so isn't all that farfetched, and certainly, 70-80k or so is well within reach.
4.)Nashville, TN-Kind of a toughie, but if you can somehow diminish the influence of Memphis, there's lots of potential for a city with the size of today's Baltimore or Austin; diversifying the music industry and some industrialization projects might help.
5.)Omaha, NE-Get some more railroads up there and maybe attract some real cheap housing and you've got potential for a Columbus-sized metropolis; being right next to the Missouri River really would pay off, as well.