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An observation made by Shevek23 in response to the latest update of Look To The West got me thinking. The observation was basically about the size of New York in that timeline, compared to "Mount Royal" (LTTW's Montréal). In LTTW, the American revolution is forestalled, keeping those cities in the same country. A mention of New York's size in the latest update then led to this comment:

I seem to recall, way back when the narrative was around the late 18th, turn of the 19th century and the Jacobin wars were raging, that you did not believe NY would dominate, because major immigration as well as trade into the Mississippi Valley would flow up the Saint Lawrence to Mount Royal, which would become the Big....Maple I guess.

This of course refers to the world of LTTW, but Shevek23 then went on to refer to the possibility that...

(...) NYC of OTL was a fluke of chance, nothing deterministic about the Hudson Valley to the Great Lakes being some sort of predetermined optimal regional channel. Rather it only looked that way OTL due to Yankees not having the Saint Lawrence in their borders, so Montreal (OTL spelling) was deprived of its natural flow with most immigration being diverted south of the US/British possessions border, so the second-best channel westward was favored.

Since I'd really like some insights into this, but don't want to clutter up the LTTW-thread with my questions, I've made a new topic for it.

My question really is: if for some reason a singly country controls all of northeastern America, is the Saint Lawrence really the superior channel to the interior, and is Montreal really the more fortunately placed city? Is OTL's supremacy of New York really a fluke?
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