Alternate history of cities

[llamaorama]

Speaking of shipping...

If Corpus Christi or Brownsville had container terminals, would they be able to become logistics hubs for Monterey and Reynosa? Tampico is even more far away than Corpus from Monterrey/Satillo, and there are no big ports at all on the Pacific side either.

For all the manufacturing in Northern Mexico, it doesn't seem like it has any transportation outlet except a few corridors that go north. Which is obvious since its all exported to the US. But in the future that might change, and with NAFTA maybe its possible for cities in the Southwestern US to be part of those transportation connections too?

Actually this brings up another alt-history thing, what if Arthur Stillwell's vision of a railroad from Kansas City to Topolobampo near Los Mochis had succeeded? The Mexican government actually did finish the line in 1961 but it was too late, and the Texas section of the railroad is a low-traffic shortline that's always a hair away from abandonment. I think frac sand trains help keep it running, I dunno. That part of the state is empty as hell, and Fort Stockton is a dusty wide spot in the road. But if back in the 1900's there was serious railroad service passing through, maybe Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, MX could have grown into a large border city, like El Paso. Also instead of being an impoverished narco territory, Sinaloa could have become more prosperous.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by ChiMIchael

I wonder if Philly would have been more competitive with NYC if canals were made to connect the it to Pittsburgh.

Philly & Baltimore & Washington have the "Appalachian/Allegeny problem". The hills & mountains to the west make canals difficult to do, & expensive, and even impractical. For example, the C&O canal from Washington fizzled, as did canal attempts from Philly. Connections to the Ohio Valley & Midwest are thus more costly than in New York, which has a low elevation river/rail/canal route up the Hudson to Albany, and then west along the Mohawk/Erie Canal to the Great Lakes & Midwest. Railroads are also faster along this route since the grade is much less than further south. This is why NYC became the #1 city. NYC also has a better harbor, closer to the ocean than that of Philly or Baltimore.

RE San Diego vs. LA, San Diego also has some steep mountains to the east. Railroads were tried east of SD, but they required expensive bridges & trestles across the mountain canyons, and they were often washed away during the rainy season. LA in contrast has a somewhat lower elevation & gradient route through the Cajon Pass & San Gorgonio Pass.

[skyscraper]

Philly was the second-largest English speaking city in the world until the early 1800s. Had the early United States decided to keep the capital in Philadelphia instead of spending their precious resources on building a capital city in a Maryland/Virginia swamp, it would still be. We could have taken our place on the world stage with an already-established major city as the capital, and not gotten off on a debt-laden beginning, or at least not as deep a debt. We could have paid off the Revolutionary War debts much sooner and been on more solid financial footing from the beginning. I understand why they moved the capital, it was a concession to the south who was already starting to make noise about the way the republic was favoring the north, and that they wanted to decentralize and diffuse power. But we saw how that concession staved of the Civil War (it didn't), so in hindsight, if we had just kept the capital here, Philadelphia would probably still be today what it was in the early colonial days - the seat of government, financial capital, media capital, cultural capital, and probably industrial capital as well (as it was until the depression). New York has a more favorable geography for immigration, with its natural harbor. But if Philadelphia had maintained its status, nyc would have just been a stepping stone for people coming to live and work in Philadelphia.

[Razor]

As far as Canadian cities go, and like others have alluded to already,what if Halifax was Canada's primate city of the day and immigrants stayed in the area upon arriving vs migrating inland to Montreal and Toronto? Perhaps we would see a Montreal sized Eastern Port city. What if Lake Superior was much larger and Winnipeg was actually a port city? Perhaps it would be larger, but at the expense of Thunder Bay.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Qubert

As it relates to Galveston: What happened historically makes sense. Even if the 1900 storm didn't happen the city would've had zero room to grow. Houston was going to happen on way or another.

New Orleans was doomed by railroads. Once you could get from the BOS-WAS corridor to CHI/STL and beyond in a day rather than paddle down the coast then up the Mississippi it was over. The fact it's as big as it is is due to oil.

NYC would have boomed with or without the Erie Canal. Yes, it helped, there's no denying that, but someone would've put a railroad between CHI and Albany and it would have had the same effect. Philly and Boston do not have a geographically advantageous corridor to the west the way the Mohawk Valley cuts a free run between Syracuse and Troy. Any canal or rail line to PHL/BOS has to cut through mountain after mountain. Not to mention, the financial interests of the colonies had already established a deep network in Manhattan even before the revolution. I don't think any other colonial city had the financial infrastructure of NY.

While technically true about Galveston, to this day, Houston and Galveston's urban areas aren't synched and it's debateable if they touch. Areas to the west and northeast of the city are still virtually or completely undeveloped. Assuming too many buildings wouldn't sink the island, because it had limited room to grow in every direction, Galveston could have resembled a bigger Manhattan if it had continued its trajectory or even accelorated it. I think we'd be looking at a San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose effect (Bolivar or Texas City being Oakland) or maybe a Dallas-Fort Worth. There is room for a megalopolis even if you had to build up.

As for New York, again, you could travel the St. Lawrence and Niagara River to get to the Great Lakes. Maybe Boston is the city if NYC doesn't develop so rapidly.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Speaking of alternatives, I wonder how the development pattern would of been shaped had a place like Philly remained the capital and let's pretend D.C. was never created.

Surely the sphere of influence would of dramatically changed the way it looks (migration, immigration, funding).

The Civil War would have happened sooner. DC was created as a compromise.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Speaking of shipping...

If Corpus Christi or Brownsville had container terminals, would they be able to become logistics hubs for Monterey and Reynosa? Tampico is even more far away than Corpus from Monterrey/Satillo, and there are no big ports at all on the Pacific side either.

For all the manufacturing in Northern Mexico, it doesn't seem like it has any transportation outlet except a few corridors that go north. Which is obvious since its all exported to the US. But in the future that might change, and with NAFTA maybe its possible for cities in the Southwestern US to be part of those transportation connections too?

Actually this brings up another alt-history thing, what if Arthur Stillwell's vision of a railroad from Kansas City to Topolobampo near Los Mochis had succeeded? The Mexican government actually did finish the line in 1961 but it was too late, and the Texas section of the railroad is a low-traffic shortline that's always a hair away from abandonment. I think frac sand trains help keep it running, I dunno. That part of the state is empty as hell, and Fort Stockton is a dusty wide spot in the road. But if back in the 1900's there was serious railroad service passing through, maybe Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, MX could have grown into a large border city, like El Paso. Also instead of being an impoverished narco territory, Sinaloa could have become more prosperous.

http://slideplayer.es/slide/1106853/...ernacional.jpg

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Razor

As far as Canadian cities go, and like others have alluded to already,what if Halifax was Canada's primate city of the day and immigrants stayed in the area upon arriving vs migrating inland to Montreal and Toronto? Perhaps we would see a Montreal sized Eastern Port city. What if Lake Superior was much larger and Winnipeg was actually a port city? Perhaps it would be larger, but at the expense of Thunder Bay.

Thunder Bay is already a blip on the radar, how much smaller could it be?

[Razor]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Thunder Bay is already a blip on the radar, how much smaller could it be?

Yes true..Point being that Thunder Bay is a Port..Winnipeg was/is a major Junction and gateway to our Prairies and is missing that port...I'm just pondering that if Winnipeg had been on a Great Lake (alternate universe with a larger lake Superior scenerio), if it would of taken on role of Thunder Bay as well and morphed into more then just a Winnipeg + a Thunder Bay tacked on when factoring in critical mass etc. Winnipeg, being a transportation hub with some manufacturing, would of been a perfect port city on the North shore of Superior.Especially for Prairie Wheats and Grains. .Yes Thunder Bay would be non existent I suppose..Speaking of which..Perhaps Thunder Bay could of been larger if major deposits of minerals and precious metals were found near there. Similar to the large discoveries found by it's counterparts in North Eastern Ontario. Heck, Sudbury started off as a one trick mining town and now is at 165k..No port.,,Both are regional centres with regional hospitals and Universities I suppose...Still small blips on radar screen in the grand scheme of things like you already mentioned..It's fun to ponder the "what ifs?" though.

[scalziand]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

RE San Diego vs. LA, San Diego also has some steep mountains to the east. Railroads were tried east of SD, but they required expensive bridges & trestles across the mountain canyons, and they were often washed away during the rainy season. LA in contrast has a somewhat lower elevation & gradient route through the Cajon Pass & San Gorgonio Pass.

It also doesn't help that the line that was eventually built has border crossings into Mexico on it's way east, and building the line entirely in the US would have been more expensive.

[scalziand]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

While technically true about Galveston, to this day, Houston and Galveston's urban areas aren't synched and it's debateable if they touch. Areas to the west and northeast of the city are still virtually or completely undeveloped. Assuming too many buildings wouldn't sink the island, because it had limited room to grow in every direction, Galveston could have resembled a bigger Manhattan if it had continued its trajectory or even accelorated it. I think we'd be looking at a San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose effect (Bolivar or Texas City being Oakland) or maybe a Dallas-Fort Worth. There is room for a megalopolis even if you had to build up.

As for New York, again, you could travel the St. Lawrence and Niagara River to get to the Great Lakes. Maybe Boston is the city if NYC doesn't develop so rapidly.

I could see Galveston expanding into Pelican Island if growth had required it.

St. Lawrence/Niagara Rivers still don't help Boston though. Boston isn't anywhere near the mouth of the St. Lawrence.

In a way, that does remind me of some of the coastal cities of Connecticut. The biggest coastal city, New Haven, isn't located on the mouth of the largest river, the Connecticut[well ok, it's located at the prehistoric mouth of the river where there's still a decent harbor, but the river itself had long moved on by the time New Haven was founded]. At the current mouth, well, there's nothing much that deserves being called a city[sorry Old Saybrook and Old Lime]. Certainly the scale of development is incongruous with the mouth of the largest river in New England, that extends all the way into Canada.

At least New London is right where you'd expect it to be, on the mouth of the New Thames River.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

They should hire some shrewd advertising people. Dan Draper types. Corpus could become another retirement center. Unlike Phoenix, they do have beaches. I don't think it reaches 120 degrees like Phoenix, does it? The only catch is it is way down in south Texas, kind of off the beaten path. But so was Las Vegas. Hey....CASINOS! That's the ticket!

Although Corpus is close to a large population region (the Brownsville/McAllen corridor). Also, that whole region is a draw for retired snowbirds in the winter.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by skyscraper

Philly was the second-largest English speaking city in the world until the early 1800s. Had the early United States decided to keep the capital in Philadelphia instead of spending their precious resources on building a capital city in a Maryland/Virginia swamp, it would still be. We could have taken our place on the world stage with an already-established major city as the capital, and not gotten off on a debt-laden beginning, or at least not as deep a debt. We could have paid off the Revolutionary War debts much sooner and been on more solid financial footing from the beginning. I understand why they moved the capital, it was a concession to the south who was already starting to make noise about the way the republic was favoring the north, and that they wanted to decentralize and diffuse power. But we saw how that concession staved of the Civil War (it didn't), so in hindsight, if we had just kept the capital here, Philadelphia would probably still be today what it was in the early colonial days - the seat of government, financial capital, media capital, cultural capital, and probably industrial capital as well (as it was until the depression). New York has a more favorable geography for immigration, with its natural harbor. But if Philadelphia had maintained its status, nyc would have just been a stepping stone for people coming to live and work in Philadelphia.

I agree with much of what you say. I have lots of relatives in Philly. However, I still think NYC would become the biggest city under the alternate scenarios because of lucky geography--the cheaper/lower gradient connection to the great lakes & Ohio valley and the better port. The Erie Canal (and later the low gradient railroads to the west) were decisive for the primacy of NYC. If Philly had stayed capital it might have been the #2 (if not #1) city in the nation, and maybe contended for financial center (it was where the Bank of U.S. was before Jackson dismantled it). That being said, Philly is a very important city and historic and very distinct.

Now, for some wild predictions: Austin/San Marcos/New Braunfels/San Antonio will grow into the largest urban conurbation in Texas, bigger than Dallas-FW or Houston.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

I agree with much of what you say. I have lots of relatives in Philly. However, I still think NYC would become the biggest city under the alternate scenarios because of lucky geography--the cheaper/lower gradient connection to the great lakes & Ohio valley and the better port. The Erie Canal (and later the low gradient railroads to the west) were decisive for the primacy of NYC. If Philly had stayed capital it might have been the #2 (if not #1) city in the nation, and maybe contended for financial center (it was where the Bank of U.S. was before Jackson dismantled it). That being said, Philly is a very important city and historic and very distinct.

Now, for some wild predictions: Austin/San Marcos/New Braunfels/San Antonio will grow into the largest urban conurbation in Texas, bigger than Dallas-FW or Houston.

Not even close and that's even if they grow into Temple/Killeen. Only a decline by the big two could begat that. As it stands, combining those two now will give you 2/3 the population either of the big two.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Not even close and that's even if they grow into Temple/Killeen. Only a decline by the big two could begat that. As it stands, combining those two now will give you 2/3 the population either of the big two.

who knows how texas is going to develop. i can imagine the day that dallas and houston are too large and gridlocked (and perhaps too expensive) for the texas growth model.

[eschaton]

As a transplant to Pittsburgh, I have been fascinated at the late 18th/early 19th competing land claims of Virginia and Pennsylvania in the area.

Essentially Virginia claimed much of what is now Southwestern Pennsylvania, up to the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. Here's a rough map showing what was claimed at that time.



Pennsylvania ultimately won the land claim, which is why Virginia (and eventually West Virginia) was left with the little northern panhandle instead of the more extensive western land claims it ultimately ended up with.

What if Virginia won out instead? The early settlement presumably wouldn't have been too much different, because the same mixture of Scotch-Irish and Germans would have moved into the region. The central city would likely still be called Pittsburgh, and have roughly the same geography, due to topographic constraints. Presumably the added population in the antebellum era wouldn't be enough to cause Virginia as a whole not to secede during the Civil War, meaning Pittsburgh would become the major urban area of West Virginia. In some ways West Virginia would become analogous to Missouri, with one major rust belt metro anchoring a state which otherwise was largely rural.

One of the biggest differences would that what became the North Side of Pittsburgh through forced annexation in the first decade of the 20th century would remain Allegheny City, an independent municipality. Therefore to a degree Pittsburgh would be a set of "twin cities." I tend to think in this case that an independent Allegheny City wouldn't quite get the short end of the stick the same way the North Side did regarding urban renewal programs like highways and expansion of industrial zones.

[MolsonExport]

in the late 60s/early 70s, Montreal metro was projected to have eight million people by the current date (instead of the current 4.1 million). Hence the need for a new International Airport. The Quebec government wanted a South Shore location. The Federal Canadian Government wanted a West of Montreal (Vaudreuil) location. The United States was not at all keen on a South Shore location, as the approach would take planes over Plattsburgh Air force base; whereas the Quebec government did not want the Airport so close to the Ontario border. Thus, Mirabel.

Of course, political and economic turmoil sharply curtailed Montreal's growth through the 1970s-1990s. Mirabel became perhaps the biggest White Elephant of Canadian history.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

who knows how texas is going to develop. i can imagine the day that dallas and houston are too large and gridlocked (and perhaps too expensive) for the texas growth model.

It's gonna be quite awhile before that happens. One of the things they have going for them is that they are dirt cheap when it comes to land and housing. And there's still plenty of land available, heck there is still farm land in Harris County in a few spots.

And if land becomes scarce, then the area will grow upward.

[hauntedheadnc]

My little city would have been a considerably more jumping place had it not been for a hurricane and the Depression hitting when they did. Several Miami developers had a plan to turn us into the "summer Miami" when their holdings, and in some cases fortunes, were annihilated by a hurricane in the late 20's. Likewise, the local boys had several skyscrapers and a subway system in the pipeline when the Depression decided to rain hard on that little parade.

Had the hurricane not hit we'd have looked like Miami Beach with mountains. Had the Depression held off for a while we'd have probably ended up looking a lot like modern Winston-Salem or Raleigh in terms of skyline height and massing.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

If Corpus has a future, it's as San Antonio's port. It too has the tools but for whatever reason never grew to anything more than a regional outpost.

If not for hurricanes, Galveston would at least be New Orleans and given it's proximity to Houston, it'd likely be a Raleigh-Durham combo of some type.

I think the population centers of Houston-Galveston would have been flipped had it not been the 1900 hurricane.

Originally Posted by Qubert

As it relates to Galveston: What happened historically makes sense. Even if the 1900 storm didn't happen the city would've had zero room to grow. Houston was going to happen on way or another.

I don't see why Galveston couldn't expand on to the mainland. New York City is broken up geographically. Or large suburbs sprouting up along the bay where Texas City and La Marque are now.