Philadelphia wank

Exactly that. During the American Revolution Philadelphia was the cultural center of America and was in fact the first industrialized city but was surpassed by New York City in the 1800's. So what would be needed for Philadelphia to stay on top as the largest city and financial center? And if that entails a New York City screw, so be it.
 
Exactly that. During the American Revolution Philadelphia was the cultural center of America and was in fact the first industrialized city but was surpassed by New York City in the 1800's. So what would be needed for Philadelphia to stay on top as the largest city and financial center? And if that entails a New York City screw, so be it.

SCREW SCREW SCREW SCREW SCREW!!! ;)
 
Probably have the channels from the Great Lakes go through to the Delaware rather than to the Hudson, as well as have most of the mass immigration go through Philadelphia, or more likely one of the nearby settlements like Wilmington, Delaware or Salem, New Jersey. I imagine a wide Philadelphia which has incorporated Wilmington and Salem was de facto suburbs.
 
The British retain New York City as a costal enclave in the Peace of Paris.

Otherwise Pennsylvania commandos will have to keep sabotaging the Erie Canal and later the New York Central RR until the Yawkers give up on capitalizing on the only easy communication route from Heartland to the East Coast.
 
The British retain New York City as a costal enclave in the Peace of Paris.

Otherwise Pennsylvania commandos will have to keep sabotaging the Erie Canal and later the New York Central RR until the Yawkers give up on capitalizing on the only easy communication route from Heartland to the East Coast.

New York was fairly loyalist, correct?
 
Almost impossible without ASB, and very improbable otherwise. The city of New York had a far reaching "hinterland" through the Erie Canal. You'd have to have a geologic POD to keep someone from doing a canal there, even Washington, Burr, and Hamilton were backers of the idea 30 years before it was built. Other canal ideas, such as the Potomac to Ohio idea that George Washington constantly promoted was never going to be economic compared to the Erie Canal. Of all the threats to New York only New Orleans ever came close to being real, and again- the Erie Canal saved the day along with almost immediately being built the very first economically successful passenger RR in the USA (Schenectady to Albany, to cut down on the time of the Erie Canal).

Four PODs would have to be made to give Philly a fighting chance.

1) Hamilton doesn't exist, butterflies- therefore Congress probably doesn't do internal improvements like the Federal Dam on the Hudson and investments, Jefferson and Madison have more influence on keeping the US agrarian, a Central Bank in Philly is formed as a completely independent corporation outside Federal control (a la Bank of England)

2) the Buttonwood Agreement isn't made. butterfly- Philly later creates the first proto-stock market in the US

3) A POD that makes Congress stay in Philadelphia, which a lot of Northerners figured at the time that inertia would keep it there after the compromise was made to move it there from NY while waiting for a Southern capital to be chosen and built and Washington DC is never created.

4) A multi-part POD based on the other three. No Hamilton and the other PoDs cause Albany and NY elite to not push for the Erie Canal, Congress being in Philly decides to have the eastern terminus of the National Road in Philly and not Baltimore. Also, Philly elites encourage first passenger RRs to be built out to Pittsburg and west prior to the Mohawk and Hudson. Instead of Erastus Corning uniting the various RRs along the Hudson and Mohawk valleys as the New York Central (later known as the Penn Central with the merger of the Pennsylvania RR) we instead have a Philly elite creating a major RR entity stretching from Philly to economically dominate the Midwest sending their agrarian products east (instead of to New Orleans) and finished goods and imports back west.

Instead of Chicago as the second largest city and dominate cattle and RR hub, you'll see St Louis instead take that place, this then causes demographic butterflies affecting the entire Midwest, and even the survival of slavery in Kentucky and Missouri. Not to mention the South and North's strategy during the Civil War, the Union doesn't have to hold on to Northern Virginia and defend Maryland as much to protect Washington DC. Major RRs to the west are farther south. Gettysburg, if it happens, is even more important for the South to win, as it can cut off Philly from the West.
 
On top of what Napoleonrules says, New York is also closer to the ocean than Philadelphia, which is located up Delaware Bay. New York outcompeted Philly for the US publishing industry because it was just closer enough to Britain that its publishers were first to get British books to pirate.

(Boston is of course even closer to Britain, but the overland connections to the rest of the US are worse than New York's and Philadelphia's.)
 
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