WI: Auto industry based around Toledo

Well for one, Toledo had a big role in the US auto industry otl, so you would be switching the two cities fates. Detroit would stay smaller, probably about the size of otl Toledo, while Toledo is a much larger city and possibly surpasses Cleveland as the largest metro in the state. This leads to Ohio being much bigger and important on a national level with Michigan being less so.

It us possible that Toledo undergoes a Detroit like collapse but it isn't a certainty. Also, Windsor, Ontario is also much smaller.
 
It still fades in Indiana. Fro a while the largest manufactor in the US was located in Kokomo, the Hayes auto company. There is still a transmission factory and a small museum in that city. Hayes lost its lead to Ford & then fell behind many others. If you are passing through central Indiana the Hayes museum is worth a side trip.

Duesenbergs Indianapolis factory barely lasted out the 1920s, the Auburn Cord company in Auburn Indiana went under in the 1930s. Studebakers Southbend plant crippled along into the 1990s assembling Italian sports cars for the US market. Tho the Studebaker marque saw its last in the early 1960s.

Without the large scale development from Ford, GM, Crysler ect... Michigan retains a larger rural & agricultural character, with small city industry & catering to autum hunters from the industrial cities southwards.

Ohio is stuck with a even worse rust belt problem than it has now. One can envision a urban ruin along the lake from Toledo to far east of Cleveland, with tendrils extending south to Columbus, Cinncinnati, Dayton, Fort Wayne, ect...
 
Well, in order to get that to happen the INI would need a reason to locate SEAT in Toledo instead of the duty-free zone at the Zona Franca in Barcelona, and then . . .

Oh, right. Wrong Toledo. :p
 
Assuming all else stays the same, the expression "arsenal of the free world" that was applied to the USA during World War II would have mostly applied to the state of Ohio. Ohio would have been the home to something that like 20% of the USA's industrial plant during its peak from 1945-1960. In terms of population, the state could very well have surpassed Pennsylvania as the third largest by 1960.

I would still expect the auto industry to make a significant impact on Michigan, though. Toledo is a stone throw away from the Michigan border. After WWII when the auto manufacturers and their suppliers outgrow Toledo, it would make sense to locate north, unless the state of Michigan had a worse business climate. If there were compelling reasons to keep automaking in Ohio, I would expect to see an industrial belt around Lake Erie, stretching as far south as Findlay.

With Toledo probably surpassing Columbus in population, I would expect that Cincinnati would be eclipsed. Expect an NFL, MLB and even NHL franchise in the city.
 
If we just switch the Detroit and Toledo metropolitan areas with each other, Ohio would probably be a blue state(or at least bluer than average, like PA or MI) and Michigan would be red or purple by OTL's 2014.

EDIT: Crunching the numbers on this. Switching the Presidential election results with each other, Romney would've lost Michigan by only 3.8 percentage points in this scenario. IOTL he lost MI by 9.5. Likewise, Obama would've won Ohio by 7 points in TTL, IOTL he won by 1.9.

EDIT2: Extrapolating the 5.7 point GOP swing for MI and a 5.1 point Dem swing for, Bush would've won Michigan and lost Ohio(not enough to stop him from winning) in 2004. And Al Gore would've been President in 2000 due to MI and OH switching places, but I'd be wary of putting that swing that far back. Also, I'm lazy and don't feel like crunching the numbers again.

Of course, this would've led to a very different political situation, and yadda yadda. Still, fun thought experiment.
 
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