WI: A Greater Boston

My last thread posed the question: Was it plausible for Boston to be anything other than the most prominent city in New England after its founding in 1630. The consensus view was that after its founding, it would be extremely unlikely that any other New England City could surpass it, in spite of the city's rather mediocre location.

I now pose a different question: What if Boston's municipal expansion of the 1870's had continued until Boston was of a comparable size to New York City? That would be a city roughly encompassing the area within the I-95 "Belt." How might having a second metropolis in the Northeast have effected the economy and culture of Massachusetts and New England? Would this super-city be more prosperous than the patchwork of cities and towns that exist in the present?

The question may seem far-fetched, but in 1850 New York City consisted of only Manhattan and a few surrounding islands, with a total area of 23 square miles. The addition of the four boroughs (by legislative acts, often over the objection of the individual towns) gave it 303 square miles of land.
 
You need to ask why peoplw would go to Boston rather than NY, what are the advantages?

Boston would need to have the access that NYC has to international shipping as the majority of the population of NY came from immigration.
 
The New York area of course exploded in growth because after the Erie Canal, it was the best spot to connect the Midwest trade and the Atlantic.

With the increase in population, it made some sort of sense for there to be one administration for the entire area and eliminate redundancy. Brooklyn didn't become part of New York until 1898 and the other boroughs only did slightly earlier.

Did the Boston area have anything near the population that the New York area had? If not - and I don't think it did - then there is no other large satellite cities for Boston to annex or vote to join.
 
^Boston did expand quite a bit, annexing some towns as it went through. Granted, it was not to the extent of NYC, but there is some precedent (the biggest exception being Brookline, which is more or less surrounded by Boston yet remains an independent city because its people are stubborn like that.) One possibility would be going for Cambridge and, also, the 3 remaining towns in Suffolk County (Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop).
 
The New York area of course exploded in growth because after the Erie Canal, it was the best spot to connect the Midwest trade and the Atlantic.

With the increase in population, it made some sort of sense for there to be one administration for the entire area and eliminate redundancy. Brooklyn didn't become part of New York until 1898 and the other boroughs only did slightly earlier.

Did the Boston area have anything near the population that the New York area had? If not - and I don't think it did - then there is no other large satellite cities for Boston to annex or vote to join.

Boston was not close to the hub that New York was, since it lacked the location at the end of a major canal. It was, however, the main commercial port in New England, and the terminus of several regional railroads that transported the goods of hundreds of major factories located in central Massachusetts, northern Connecticut, as well as Southern Vermont and New Hampshire.

Even with the same population levels as OTL, there would be significant economies of scale to be gained by combing the myriad of small towns and cities surrounding Boston. A larger local government could combine more resources, and more rationally plan out infrastructure.
 
You could get a larger Boston, yes, however nothing compared to New York in size; generally speaking their are only ever one Super city per region (in this case the region being the Mid and North Atlantic states).
 
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You could get a larger Bston, yes, however nothing compared to New York in size; generally speaking their are only ever one Super city per region (in this case the region being the Mid and North Atlantic states).

But could New York and Boston swap?
 
Philadelphia was bigger than nyc for a while. The two turning points were a nasty yellow fever epidemic in philadelphia on the one hand, and the opening of the erie canal, on the other.

If the primary route into the interior is by canal and rail from philly to pittsburg, then philly stays strong, at least ranking nyc. If the yellow fever hit nyc, instead, then philly would be bigger.

Boston will never match the big gateway to the interior. But if nyc is smaller, boston could have a greater reach, and maybe be bigger than nyc.
 
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