I know there's been lots of speculation about the Simpsons' Springfield, and the producers are purposely vague and contradictory about it. But I'd like to present this anyway.
In the Simpsons Movie, Springfield seems to be a metropolis, and the episodes show it having a huge number of businesses, implying it's a major city.
Groening named it after Springfield, Oregon, which would be an obvious choice, but I think another city might fit better.
Springfield seems to be on or near a coast, like Astoria.
Oregon has many different climates, rainforest, Mediterranean, alpine, steppe, and desert, which can accomodate many of the episodes.
According to Wikipedia, Astoria suffered two major fires, the first in 1883. No changes were made in the rebuilding, so a second fire struck in 1922, and that could have been a factor in the city's decline. It was eclipsed in OTL by Portland and Seattle, and is now just a small town.
Maybe Seattle is ATL Springfield? Would that make better sense than Astoria=Springfield?
So my appreciation for alternative histories kicks in, and this is what I get:
How's this? Jedediah Springfield was a prospector who got rich in California, and started a settlement near Astoria. He tucked his money away for a rainy day, which came when Astoria suffered its major fire in 1883. The town leaders in Springfield used their money to take over Astoria and instituted new building codes. (That hadn't been done in OTL, which led to the second fire, which didn't happen in the ATL.)
OTL Springfield was incorporated as a city in 1885; it's over a hundred miles away, some distance inland, and in this ATL they'd choose a different name, since "Springfield" was already taken.
So after Springfield annexes Astoria and expands, it grows in importance. The distance from Astoria to Portland is comparable to the distance from New York City across Long Island. So Portland might end up on the outskirts of the megalopolis of Springfield.
How this affects other things is anybody's guess. The show obviously ignores the butterfly effects.
There is another issue, which logically would have many butterflies.
In the episode "The Bob Next Door", Sideshow Bob takes Bart to a point where five states meet at a point.
Which five states are they?? Well, if we shorten Oklahoma's panhandle a bit, and/or tweak the borders of the adjoining states, which can get five states to meet: Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
That seems the most likely. As for the accents of the police in that episode, that's just because those officers grew up in other parts of the country. And the states' names can be different in this ATL.
A less likely scenario is this: Suppose the territories of Oregon and Washington were divided by a north-south line instead of an east-west line. Then we might be able to have Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho and Nevada meet in the vicinity of Modoc National Forest, if we tweak the borders a bit. But that seems less likely.
Looking at a map, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee is another possibility (tweaking the borders again) but there's no reason to prefer that one, is there?
With a POD in the Civil War, or in the Revolutionary War, maybe West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky might have ended up with different borders, all meeting at a single point. Is that likely?
That's a bit off topic; for the Simpsons episode, I think the one with Oklahoma et al. is the most likely. And the producers are obviously ignoring the butterfly effects.
In the Simpsons Movie, Springfield seems to be a metropolis, and the episodes show it having a huge number of businesses, implying it's a major city.
Groening named it after Springfield, Oregon, which would be an obvious choice, but I think another city might fit better.
Springfield seems to be on or near a coast, like Astoria.
Oregon has many different climates, rainforest, Mediterranean, alpine, steppe, and desert, which can accomodate many of the episodes.
According to Wikipedia, Astoria suffered two major fires, the first in 1883. No changes were made in the rebuilding, so a second fire struck in 1922, and that could have been a factor in the city's decline. It was eclipsed in OTL by Portland and Seattle, and is now just a small town.
Maybe Seattle is ATL Springfield? Would that make better sense than Astoria=Springfield?
So my appreciation for alternative histories kicks in, and this is what I get:
How's this? Jedediah Springfield was a prospector who got rich in California, and started a settlement near Astoria. He tucked his money away for a rainy day, which came when Astoria suffered its major fire in 1883. The town leaders in Springfield used their money to take over Astoria and instituted new building codes. (That hadn't been done in OTL, which led to the second fire, which didn't happen in the ATL.)
OTL Springfield was incorporated as a city in 1885; it's over a hundred miles away, some distance inland, and in this ATL they'd choose a different name, since "Springfield" was already taken.
So after Springfield annexes Astoria and expands, it grows in importance. The distance from Astoria to Portland is comparable to the distance from New York City across Long Island. So Portland might end up on the outskirts of the megalopolis of Springfield.
How this affects other things is anybody's guess. The show obviously ignores the butterfly effects.
There is another issue, which logically would have many butterflies.
In the episode "The Bob Next Door", Sideshow Bob takes Bart to a point where five states meet at a point.
Which five states are they?? Well, if we shorten Oklahoma's panhandle a bit, and/or tweak the borders of the adjoining states, which can get five states to meet: Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
That seems the most likely. As for the accents of the police in that episode, that's just because those officers grew up in other parts of the country. And the states' names can be different in this ATL.
A less likely scenario is this: Suppose the territories of Oregon and Washington were divided by a north-south line instead of an east-west line. Then we might be able to have Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho and Nevada meet in the vicinity of Modoc National Forest, if we tweak the borders a bit. But that seems less likely.
Looking at a map, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee is another possibility (tweaking the borders again) but there's no reason to prefer that one, is there?
With a POD in the Civil War, or in the Revolutionary War, maybe West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky might have ended up with different borders, all meeting at a single point. Is that likely?
That's a bit off topic; for the Simpsons episode, I think the one with Oklahoma et al. is the most likely. And the producers are obviously ignoring the butterfly effects.
