Best And Worst Located State Capitals

[BG918]

Jefferson City is an odd choice for Missouri’s capital. Centrally located but in a small town - should’ve just put it in Columbia with Mizzou.

[bobdreamz]

Originally Posted by jd3189

I’m probably wrong, but I believe there was a movement to have Florida’s capital city be Orlando since the state is now mainly populated down to the peninsula. When Tallahassee was established, it was halfway between St. Augustine and Pensacola, the two largest cities at the time.

jd3189 You are correct and xzmattzx said :

"St. Augustine and Pensacola were the capitals of East Florida and West Florida, respectively."

Tallahassee was chosen as a compromise where the Representatives of both East & West Florida could meet somewhere that was only a day's travel by land instead of having to sail around the peninsula which would take weeks.
The vast majority of Florida's population was located in Northern Florida at the time.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by jd3189

I’m probably wrong, but I believe there was a movement to have Florida’s capital city be Orlando since the state is now mainly populated down to the peninsula.

Yeah, I think that that would make a lot of sense, given that most of Florida's population seems to be centered around Miami/Tampa/Orlando.

Another place that I was thinking would make sense for the capital (were it ever to be moved) would be Gainesville, as it is somewhat centrally located and has the university.

[L41A]

The geographic center of Florida is in Hernando County and not very far the Gulf Coast. It is located almost due west of Orlando and almost due north of Tampa.

The population center of Florida is in Polk County between Orlando (sw) and Tampa (due east). And it has been in Polk County for decades.

Somewhere like Lakeland is between the Florida geographic center, Florida population center, and the cities of Tampa and Orlando.

Admittedly, I am biased and like Tallahassee as the capital.
The capital city is primary for where the state legislature convene for a segment of the year. And its location is not much of a factor in the 21st century for travel, communication, etc. (especially in a state like Florida) for legislators to meet. Florida state government services are often decentralized anyway.

[jtown,man]

This topic brings up another issue:

States that are deceptively large. Florida fits the bill for me. Once you enter Florida from Alabama its like "Miami here we come!"....10 hours later. Which is only 3 hours faster than it takes me to get from Chicago to Pensacola.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

Ann Arbor, while a great town, is not the capital of Michigan. That'd be Lansing, and from what I can tell from streetview, it looks like a pretty underwhelming capital city.

Ironically, both Ann Arbor and Lansing are artificial population centers that developed by relocating state institutions from Detroit. Both the state capital and the University of Michigan were originally located in Detroit.

[deja vu]

Originally Posted by edale

Ann Arbor, while a great town, is not the capital of Michigan. That'd be Lansing, and from what I can tell from streetview, it looks like a pretty underwhelming capital city.

Lansing's not too bad - in fact, quite vibrant. So much has been built in the past few years that isn't yet reflected on street view. Especially when the greater context is taken into consideration, including East Lansing (home to Michigan State University), which is experiencing a mini high rise boom akin to Ann Arbor's. Lansing is the state's 3rd largest CSA (behind Detroit & Grand Rapids).

The Capitol building itself is kind of an uggo - but like an ugly child that you love anyway. It's dome is totally disproportionate & discordant with the rest of the building. But that's probably another topic.


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Originally Posted by JHikka

Feel like Grand Rapids would make a better capital.

It definitely has the size and cultural amenities. Not quite as central as Lansing though.

[MolsonExport]

Doesn't Montpelier (VT) have less people than a small university?

The population was 7,855 as of the 2010 census.

nothing wrong with putting the capital in a smaller place. Montreal is about 6 times larger than Quebec City, yet the capital of the Province of Quebec is in the latter.

[MolsonExport]

I think Juneau (Alaska) has to be the least central of all US capital cities. Located on what should be Canadian territory.

[photoLith]

Man, what a pain for most Alaskans it would be to get to the capital. What if you lived on some far away place like Unalaska, it would probably cost 600 bucks or so to get to the capital if you had to.

[Acajack]

Weren't they going to move Alaska's capital to somewhere closer to Fairbanks or Anchorage?

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by BG918

Jefferson City is an odd choice for Missouri’s capital. Centrally located but in a small town - should’ve just put it in Columbia with Mizzou.

being on the river was pretty important to missouri in 1821...the previous capital was at st. charles also right on the river. the states population was almost entirely along the missouri and mississippi rivers. columbia had a landing on the missouri but involved an overland trek, and the university wasnt there at the time so was a pretty minor outpost.

the missouri state capital lords over the river:


wikipedia.com

unlike illinois and further east, the missouri overland road system was very sparse excepting the california/santa fe/oregon trails which split off landings on the missouri river west of st. louis.

[Yuri]

In Brazil, all the 26 state capitals are also, by a large margin, the biggest urban area in their states, so it's quite hard to argue any of them are not the best suited for that role. Even the ones created from the scratch to be the capital (Belo Horizonte, Goiânia, Palmas) quickly became the largest and the most dominant cities in their states.

And obviously, Brasília, created in 1960 to be the country's capital. Location right in the middle of the country (but far from the population centre). Many argue capital should have been kept in Rio de Janeiro, that it was a waste of money and a way to leave politicians far away from popular pressure, but I believe it's doing its job fine.

It's an horrible urban experience, but you don't need this in order to perform its bureaucratic role.

[IluvATX]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Weren't they going to move Alaska's capital to somewhere closer to Fairbanks or Anchorage?

For years they have talked about moving it to Houston, Alaska or somewhere else in the Mat-Su valley.(about a 45 minute drive north of Anchorage). Haven’t heard anything recently about it though.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Trenton is pretty perfectly located for New Jersey, I'd include it in the best list.
.

How so?

It basically functions as suburban Philadelphia, given its location. It’s like Bucks County’s “downtown”.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Weren't they going to move Alaska's capital to somewhere closer to Fairbanks or Anchorage?

I think they got close to moving it to Wasilla at some point.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

I think they got close to moving it to Wasilla at some point.

thats interesting. i wonder what the story is on why they backed off?

[bossabreezes]

Originally Posted by pj3000

How so?

It basically functions as suburban Philadelphia, given its location. It’s like Bucks County’s “downtown”.

It's almost at the geographic center of the state. NJ at that point is like 40 miles from PA border to the ocean, and in the north-south matrix its pretty much smack dab in the middle. If it were located say, 20 miles to the east you can't get much more central than that. It is also very close to the center of population, straddling both the New York metro and the Philly metro. The city itself sucks, though.

[Steely Dan]

here's a link to a really cool map that shows the distance of all 50 US state capitals from their states' geographic and population centers.

http://www.bytemuse.com/post/central...tate-capitals/


nothing comes close to touching alaska for the greatest distances, but in the lower 48, california, nevada, wyoming and florida all seem to have capital cities that are the greatest distances from both of their centers.

indiana, arkansas, tennessee, south carolina and many of the tiny NE states have their capitals located pretty damn close to both centers.

michigan, oregon, and nebraska seem to be the most extreme examples of states being located close to their popualtion centers, but way off from their geographic centers.

and then there's illinois which has a capital located pretty close to the geographic center, but is far away from the population center because of the state's woefully lopsided population situation with chicagoland.

[photoLith]

I never knew how tiny Wyomings Capitol building is. There many county courthouses here in PA that are bigger and Alaskas Capital building is about the most boring of them all, along with Hawaii.