DBWI: Prevent the urbanization of Long Island

Last night, I attended a rooftop party in the city of Great Neck (population 450,000) hosted by my friend who lives in the 38-story co-op apartment building. On one side, you can see the 90-story skyscraper that is the Sprague Tower (named after former Nassau County Executive J. Russell Sprague). At the height of Sprague's power, 80 percent of employees of the Nassau County Government worked in that building (Rockefeller Capital currently occupies the top five stories). Sprague Tower is one of the many commercial and residential buildings in Nassau and Suffolk counties developed by Frederick Trump. In New York, only the Empire State Building is taller.

The growth of Trump's real estate empire was responsible for the transformation of Long Island from a land of small villages and farms into a multitude of urban metropolises (and helped by lavish political contributions to Democrats and Republicans in both counties).

What POD would prevent the mass urbanization of the region and result in keeping Long Island rural, or at least turning it into a mere suburb just like Westchester and Rockland counties? If Nassau and Suffolk counties remained rural/suburban, would there be still any population growth? [1] Would the east end of Suffolk County still secede and form Peconic County? [2]

Also, would no urban development of Suffolk and Nassau counties result in a decrease in New York state's population? New York currently has 53 electoral votes (There are a combined 29 Congressional Districts in NYC, Suffolk, Nassau and Peconic counties).

And would the Trump Casino and Hotel in Atlantic Beach still be the largest employer in Long Island if it was merely rural/suburban?

Notes:
[1] IOTL, the populations are 2.75 million in Nassau County and 3 million in Suffolk County

[2] which was created IOTL in 1975 in a backlash against the mass development in Suffolk. Peconic County's current population is 250,000 (the tallest building there is the 25-story Perry Duryea Building in East Hampton, which houses the county government and courts).
 
For starters, without the boost, would New York City be the world's largest city? Or would Norfolk or Suffolk counties be trying to become the sixth and seventh boroughs?

One thing that really boosted the population and economy of Long Island and the surrounding areas was the massive spike in crime back in the 1970s - how could we get those people to go somewhere else? Maybe to the South or Sunbelt like a lot of other folks fleeing the Rust Belt did?

One thing to consider - New York is a toss up state in the Presidential elections most times. If Long Island and New York were less urbanized, would that change? If so, which party would control New York?
 
Very hard with a POD after 1900.

Westchester seceeded from Bronx County to keep New York City from expanding north and ruining the playgrounds of the rich. They'd still be very hostile about the possibility of turning into the "North Bronx."

Staten Island is just too far from Manhattan. It took until the Varazano Narrows Bridge for it to be even reachable to the rest of New York by car. Also, much of that has been designated as a refuge for the Middle Class to try to prevent some amount of "Suburbanization."

That leaves New Jersey, which tries (laughably) to be the "Garden State," and is in utter denial that they are nothing but the suburbs of New York City and Phillidelphia (Well only in the strict literal sense of smaller satelite city, it is quite obvious that Camden is a "suburb" of Phillidelphia the way the mountaintop Favelas are suburbs of Rio de Janeiro), plus Cape May, the Pine Barrens, and Dismal Swamp. To that end, their state constitution was ammended shortly after the merger that created Greater New York so that they are the only state in the Union (not even Delaware or Rhode Island has anything similar) that places even urban zoning powers in the hands of Trenton. It would take some sort of fluke, like Hudson County voting to secede from New Jersey between the Twenties and Fifties and become the Sixth Burough (Say, New Jersey stays dry after the end of Prohibition), or SUNY placing its Greater New York Area campus around the Downstate Medical Center in Broolkyn and being willing to displace the people living there to somewhere else to keep most of Long Island bedroom communities and farms.

If this was in Before 1900, I would have suggested things like either the New York-Pennsylvania dispute that created New Jersey is settled in such a way that there is no founding of New Jersey, or results in Hudson and Union counties ending up part of Nre York State, the New York-Connecticut dispute either results in New York trading Long Island (either all of it, or ellse Suffolk and Nassau Counties) for Fairfield County, or else making Long Island its own colony like what happened to New Jersey.
 
OOC: does this mean that Sports Teams that OTL went to New Jersey, and/or New Sports Teams can be found in East Long Island, like the Angels and Ducks in Anaheim, or the Dallas Cowboys actually in Arlington?
 
OOC: does this mean that Sports Teams that OTL went to New Jersey, and/or New Sports Teams can be found in East Long Island, like the Angels and Ducks in Anaheim, or the Dallas Cowboys actually in Arlington?


ooc: I'm betting on sports teams in Long Island being able to take part in a "Subway Series," because hmm...

ic: one way to promote a different development path for Long Island could have been to provide suburban infrastructural trappings. I understand that Robert Moses had advocated constructing vast interstate highways inviting cars and suburban-minded folks to use the place like it was another Rockland County. In fact, one book I've been reading on the subject suggested that he went so far as to demand that the highways be constructed so as to preclude train routes from being built on the highway median. (This to prevent urban folks from getting to Ocean Beach, etc! Can you imagine, conservative suburbanites in the heart of the NYC metro area thanks to a thwarted railway or two?) This would definitely have locked Long Island onto a suburban path, versus a "come one, come all" urban path reliant on mass transit.
 
Very hard with a POD after 1900.

Westchester seceeded from Bronx County to keep New York City from expanding north and ruining the playgrounds of the rich. They'd still be very hostile about the possibility of turning into the "North Bronx."

Staten Island is just too far from Manhattan. It took until the Varazano Narrows Bridge for it to be even reachable to the rest of New York by car. Also, much of that has been designated as a refuge for the Middle Class to try to prevent some amount of "Suburbanization."

That leaves New Jersey, which tries (laughably) to be the "Garden State," and is in utter denial that they are nothing but the suburbs of New York City and Phillidelphia (Well only in the strict literal sense of smaller satelite city, it is quite obvious that Camden is a "suburb" of Phillidelphia the way the mountaintop Favelas are suburbs of Rio de Janeiro), plus Cape May, the Pine Barrens, and Dismal Swamp. To that end, their state constitution was ammended shortly after the merger that created Greater New York so that they are the only state in the Union (not even Delaware or Rhode Island has anything similar) that places even urban zoning powers in the hands of Trenton. It would take some sort of fluke, like Hudson County voting to secede from New Jersey between the Twenties and Fifties and become the Sixth Burough (Say, New Jersey stays dry after the end of Prohibition), or SUNY placing its Greater New York Area campus around the Downstate Medical Center in Broolkyn and being willing to displace the people living there to somewhere else to keep most of Long Island bedroom communities and farms.

If this was in Before 1900, I would have suggested things like either the New York-Pennsylvania dispute that created New Jersey is settled in such a way that there is no founding of New Jersey, or results in Hudson and Union counties ending up part of Nre York State, the New York-Connecticut dispute either results in New York trading Long Island (either all of it, or ellse Suffolk and Nassau Counties) for Fairfield County, or else making Long Island its own colony like what happened to New Jersey.

Westchester County did not secede from the Bronx. Bronx County has existed since 1914; Westchester since colonial times. (To be more precise, the areas that are now the Bronx were annexed by New York City from Westchester County in two pieces, in 1874 and 1895; it just became part of New York City until "Consolidation" in 1898, when Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island were added to the city and the concept of "boroughs" as subdivisions of the city appeared; it was at that point that the pre-Consolidation city was split into two boroughs, Manhattan and the Bronx; both boroughs were part of New York County until 1914, when the Bronx became a county and got its own courts and the like.)

How is Hudson County going to secede from New Jersey and join New York? Constitutionally, that can't happen without New Jersey's consent.

Why would Hudson and Union counties - but nothing else - join New York? Geographically, that's absurd.

Parts of New Jersey, not just "Cape May and the Pine Barrens," are actually quite rural. Although getting less so. The Dismal Swamp is in Virginia and North Carolina.

"Phillidelphia" does not exist.
 
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ic: one way to promote a different development path for Long Island could have been to provide suburban infrastructural trappings. I understand that Robert Moses had advocated constructing vast interstate highways inviting cars and suburban-minded folks to use the place like it was another Rockland County. In fact, one book I've been reading on the subject suggested that he went so far as to demand that the highways be constructed so as to preclude train routes from being built on the highway median. (This to prevent urban folks from getting to Ocean Beach, etc! Can you imagine, conservative suburbanites in the heart of the NYC metro area thanks to a thwarted railway or two?) This would definitely have locked Long Island onto a suburban path, versus a "come one, come all" urban path reliant on mass transit.

A more powerful Robert Moses would probably also get his way on urban highways like the Cross-Manhattan Expressway, which would demolish the urban fabric of Manhattan and, probably, resulted in a decanting of its population to the suburbs.
 
OOC: Erm, you realize that Long Island is about five feet from being pretty urbanized in some places too, right? I mean Hempstead's got a population of like 750,000. It's certainly not Brooklyn, but at the same time parts of Nassau county are easily more urbanized than Staten Island.

Also, urbanization east of the Pine Barrens is probably ASB-I guess that's why you posit the existence of a Peconic County.
 
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