Speculation: Greatest City or Nation that Never Was

I'd say West Africa was screwed over, East Africa equally if not moreso if only because they were better integrated into the Eastern trade, (no good reason for why they shouldn't have been better off OTL) but for whatever reason I don't see any scenario where the Congo and anything south of there to be anything resembling a happy situation.

Maybe that's historical bias, but for the most part you're dealing with insular cultures with very low political sophistication that doesn't fit into a modern state and that would be their only defense against exploitation and abuse from an outside world lusting after their material wealth.

I see what you're saying, but I'm of the opinion that had the colonial system stayed in place a while longer they could have achieved the political sophistication necessary. A lot of African countries today which previously struggled with all sorts of domestic issues are finally starting/have managed to sort themselves out. If they'd been in place under a modern system (i.e. colonialism) for a while longer, I think they would have been able to avoid all the horrible infighting etc that has been plaguing them. There would still be issues, but it could have gone so much better.
 
The Incas had the largest empire in the world in 1500, in the roughest terrain in the world outside Tibet, with no wheels or big animals, and no writing system (they used a binary sytem of knktted strings called quipu, which were much easier to store). Then it disappeared in the space of a decade.

And a post-1900 one, but...

My hometown of Rochester was America's first boomtown. It was the 16th largest city in the US by 1860, and remained in the top 30 until the 1950s, as a major manufacturing center. Today it isn't even in the top 100, and has almost no local manufacturers.

This could also be applied to other rust belt cities.
 

It's

Banned
Ireland - losing ~20 percent of its population in a decade in the middle of the Nineteenth Century (8.5 million dropped to 6.5 million, roughly), at a point where industrialization and urbanization was about to kick off in a significant way, can not be seen as anything else but devastating.

In 1840, the Netherlands had less than 3 million people; Ireland's population was at least 8 million, and was close to 6 million by 1850...

Granted, the Netherlands were independent, as well, but if Ireland's population had topped out at 9 million (absent the famine and encouraged migration) that compares with Scotland at 3 million in 1850, from a total of 27.5 million in the UK and Ireland total in 1850 (so adding the "lost" Irish population probably bumps it to 30 million)... if a third of this "larger" kingdom is Irish/Scots/Welsh/Gaelic/Celtic, then "Britain' is going to have to be a very different place.

Certainly more democratic, federal, and equalitarian.

Which has real impact on the future of the UK, Empire, and Commonwealth in the remainder of the Nineteenth Century, and even into the Twentieth.

Best,
Da luck of da Oirish!
Be politically correct without having to be, you know, foreign...
 
Vilnius and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Had the Gediminids succeeded in uniting all the Eastern Slavs, and then expanded into Asia like the Grand Duchy of Moscow did OTL, the world's largest country would be called Litwa (and speak Belarusian).
 
Last edited:
If the Bengal were not divided, Calcutta/Kolkata would no doubt be India's greatest port and financial centre. If India itself did not pursue its Soviet-style path post-independence, Kolkata could well be as glitzy as Shanghai today.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The crop failures were chance; the famine was policy

Da luck of da Oirish!
Be politically correct without having to be, you know, foreign...

The crop failures were chance; the famine - at a time when Ireland was exporting food to Britain - was policy...

Best,
 
The Roman Empire. They did extremely, implausibly well for themselves but I've always thought that the empire would've benefited from having a legally stipulated throne succession to avoid civil wars and other power struggles that drained the empire's strength.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
The crop failures were chance; the famine - at a time when Ireland was exporting food to Britain - was policy...

Best,

That makes it appear like was a directly malicious act - by and large the Famine was a clusterfuck of policies colliding, combined with Free Trade law that was meant to help bring in food, exacerbated by a utterly powerless minority government.

Nobody tried to starve the Irish, or maintain a famine. At least not from what I've ever read. The only thing near to trying, was refusing aid from the Turks.

Hell, they tried a work program, where they paid people to do nothing at all useful, just so they could afford to eat!

That is a woefully simplistic description of events. (Unusual considering your usual attention to detail).
 
The Roman Empire. They did extremely, implausibly well for themselves but I've always thought that the empire would've benefited from having a legally stipulated throne succession to avoid civil wars and other power struggles that drained the empire's strength.

Rome lasted for centuries as the dominant power in the med. They were very successful. Not sure if they belong in this thread.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
British government policy, at a time when crop failures were widespread in Ireland

That makes it appear like was a directly malicious act - by and large the Famine was a clusterfuck of policies colliding, combined with Free Trade law that was meant to help bring in food, exacerbated by a utterly powerless minority government. Nobody tried to starve the Irish, or maintain a famine. At least not from what I've ever read. The only thing near to trying, was refusing aid from the Turks. Hell, they tried a work program, where they paid people to do nothing at all useful, just so they could afford to eat! That is a woefully simplistic description of events. (Unusual considering your usual attention to detail).

British government policy, at a time when crop failures were widespread in Ireland, was to export food grown/produced in Ireland to Britain.

Seems rather straightforward.

Best,
 
Atlanta: A massive city with culture and one of the few cities that could potentially eclipse some of the stuff they had in the north given time, but then this dude named Sherman came down and while the city is still powerful it could have been so. much. more.

The Indus Valley Civilization: One of the most powerful and influential states of the ancient world, arguably more powerful than Egypt hundreds of years before, but then it... dissipated.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
British government policy, at a time when crop failures were widespread in Ireland, was to export food grown/produced in Ireland to Britain.

Seems rather straightforward.

Best,

No, its policy was not to undo free trade law, which allowed everyone (including Irish Landowners) to export food grown/produced in Ireland to EVERYWHERE.

As I said, it was a clusterfuck of policies, rather than a deliberate effort to starve the Irish by the British state.

Should it have enacted a command economy? In hindsight, I'd probably say so - but they genuinely believed that a free-market would enable Ireland (with a vast demand for food) would be able to import food.

They weren't willing to undo the legislation they'd just enacted for it - that is an absence of legislation and policy. Not deliberate policy to cause it. There is a subtle difference, hence why I said you've made a woefully simplistic description of what happened.

Neglect? Yes. Free-Trade Ideology? Yes. Minority Government? Yes. Deliberate Attempt to starve the Irish, force them all to emigrate or starve and therefore not pay taxes? No.
 
That makes it appear like was a directly malicious act - by and large the Famine was a clusterfuck of policies colliding, combined with Free Trade law that was meant to help bring in food, exacerbated by a utterly powerless minority government.

Nobody tried to starve the Irish, or maintain a famine. At least not from what I've ever read. The only thing near to trying, was refusing aid from the Turks.

Hell, they tried a work program, where they paid people to do nothing at all useful, just so they could afford to eat!

That is a woefully simplistic description of events. (Unusual considering your usual attention to detail).

British government policy at the time wasn't directly to starve the Irish, but neither was Chinese communist policy to starve people during the Great Leap Forward. It was a result of ideological rigidity in the face of facts on the ground and casual disregard for the lives lost. You saw the same thing in the Raj, which killed more people than any dictator of the 20th century due to blind adherence to laissez-faire capitalism.

tl;dr - they don't deserve a pass any more than Chairman Mao does.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Ireland had twice as many people in 1840 as it does

No, its policy was not to undo free trade law, which allowed everyone (including Irish Landowners) to export food grown/produced in Ireland to EVERYWHERE.

As I said, it was a clusterfuck of policies, rather than a deliberate effort to starve the Irish by the British state.

Should it have enacted a command economy? In hindsight, I'd probably say so - but they genuinely believed that a free-market would enable Ireland (with a vast demand for food) would be able to import food.

They weren't willing to undo the legislation they'd just enacted for it - that is an absence of legislation and policy. Not deliberate policy to cause it. There is a subtle difference, hence why I said you've made a woefully simplistic description of what happened.

Neglect? Yes. Free-Trade Ideology? Yes. Minority Government? Yes. Deliberate Attempt to starve the Irish, force them all to emigrate or starve and therefore not pay taxes? No.

Ireland had close to twice as many people in 1840 as it does today. Seems like rather poor governance, in any case.

Best,
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
British government policy at the time wasn't directly to starve the Irish, but neither was Chinese communist policy to starve people during the Great Leap Forward. It was a result of ideological rigidity in the face of facts on the ground and casual disregard for the lives lost. You saw the same thing in the Raj, which killed more people than any dictator of the 20th century due to blind adherence to laissez-faire capitalism.

tl;dr - they don't deserve a pass any more than Chairman Mao does.

I'm not saying that - although, there is plenty of writing that suggests that British official were flat out ignorant of the reality of circumstances - yay incompetence, which makes it somewhat different to the Chinese cirucmstance, but good comparison nonetheless.

I just object to the description that it was British policy, rather than negligence and ideology. Its the difference between being an awful driver, and a deliberately destructive one. Two situations where nobody deserves a pass, but one is inherently worse than the other.
 
Rome lasted for centuries as the dominant power in the med. They were very successful. Not sure if they belong in this thread.

I acknowledged that. I'm just saying a concrete method of succession certainly wouldn't hurt Rome.
 
Atlanta: A massive city with culture and one of the few cities that could potentially eclipse some of the stuff they had in the north given time, but then this dude named Sherman came down and while the city is still powerful it could have been so. much. more.

The Indus Valley Civilization: One of the most powerful and influential states of the ancient world, arguably more powerful than Egypt hundreds of years before, but then it... dissipated.

Eh... I think you make Atlanta seem a bit bigger and more important than it was at the time, it did not become the state capital even until after the Civil War (in 1868 actually). Pre-Sherman you see Savannah and New Orleans as much better rivals to NY, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. Atlanta in 1860 (that's before Sherman's march btw) had about 9,000 people, and that's being generous. Savannah, Georgia however had 22,000 people. Atlanta actually grew to about 21,000 people by 1870, thanks to those northerners and an influx of rural people moving from the countryside to the city. The Civil War was one of the best things to happen to Atlanta as it drove people off their large plantations and ended slavery allowing the south to have a city of considerable size inland away from the coast. A slave economy stifled Atlanta, along with other things associated with states rights, such as all the different RR gauges, it wasn't until standardization that Atlanta benefited as a transportation hub (thank you Civil War); and of course the airport and Coca Cola built Atlanta in modern times. As for culture in Atlanta... it's debatable if it has any to speak of today, let alone in 1860 with only 9,000 people when it had what little culture one would expect in a city that size.
 
Hmmmmm...

Thinking locally, the City of North Las Vegas, had a terrible adolescence. It began as a sort of anarcho-capitalist experiment (my analysis, you could also say it was a libertarian's paradise) in which there were no regulations and no real government. The City of Las Vegas shut us down with a series of laws that basically made my home town into a colony of Sin City (back when "Sin City" was a little more straight laced).

I'd also throw up New Orleans - a city that could have been so much, overshadowed by overt corruption and a shaky levy system. New Orleans, capital of the New France... New Orleans, capital of wild fire state made up of freed slaves in the aftermath of a successful German Coast Uprising...

For the world, I'd say:

Vinland - because a Viking America is the coolest scenario in the world, no other reason.

I would also say... Euskadi (including Navarre). Basque history is incredibly interesting. I feel like their little region of Europe hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.
 
Top