Historical Ring Cities
this thread is about satellite cities from the 19th century or prior.
chicago has 4 older ring cities from the 19th century that have since been gobbled up by latter-half 20th century sprawl. what's kinda weird, though, is the almost perfect symmetry in their distances from downtown chicago. - Waukegan, IL (pop. 89,321): ~35 miles NNW of downtown chicago (incorporated in 1849) - Elgin, IL (pop. 114,797): ~35 miles WNW of downtown chicago (incorporated in 1854) - Aurora, IL (pop. 180,542): ~35 miles WSW of downtown chicago (incorporated in 1845) - Joliet, IL (pop. 150,362): ~35 miles SW of downtown chicago (incorporated in 1852) all 4 of these cities started out as independent places; not subordinate to chicago in their early development in the 19th century. they are not "burbs" in the traditional sense. but it is interesting to me that all of them seemed to form at roughly the same time and distance from the big alpha city in a near-perfect ring, and were then consequently consumed by sprawl. does your metro area follow a similar pattern of a ring of older, larger, but historically independent cities that have been swallowed up? |
Houston has very few but Galveston, Pasadena, Pearland, Texas City and Sugar Land to name a few. There are others as well but other than Galveston, most might have been founded in the 1800's as separate communities with their own histories but incorporated much later and became suburban Houston.
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Detroit inner satellites are: 25miles out
Mt Clemens, Pontiac, Plymouth, Flat Rock Detroit has outter satellites: 50 miles out Port Huron, Flint, Ann Arbor, Toledo |
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Los Angeles has quite a few; the big ones that pop out in my mind are Pasadena, Glendale, and Long Beach, all founded in the 19th Century (though Glendale incorporated as a city in 1906), but many of the towns surrounding Los Angeles started out independently from Los Angeles. Some of them were bona fide agricultural towns, and some of them started out as real estate developments that were in cahoots with the expanding Pacific Electric streetcar system.
Some of these small towns had aspirations of becoming bigger cities, though, even bigger than Los Angeles. Alhambra is one of them. The context is that in the late 1880s, though LA was the county seat of LA County, it still basically was a small town amidst agriculture. Alhambra wanted to create a "Greater Alhambra," and early on started annexing land, and wanted to create a sewer farm outside of its city limits; the people living next to the sewer farm said "Oh HELLZ no" and that's how the cities of Monterey Park and Montebello were created; their incorporations prevented the sewer farm from being built. Long Beach also started annexing land, and did those sneaky "shoestring annexations," which would encircle large acreages of undeveloped land or agricultural land. When the Lakewood Park Corporation started building acres of tract homes on a former lima bean field encircled by some of Long Beach's shoestrings, Long Beach had plans to annex that development, but instead, the residents formed the city of Lakewood. Pasadena also did somewhat of a shoestring annexation into the mountains north of it, to insure sources of water (many communities allowed themselves to be annexed by the city of LA to access LA's DWP water). Here's Pasadena's city limits; you can see two sections that snake up into the San Gabriel Mountains: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pa....1445155?hl=en Of course in the early 1900s, LA did a shoestring annexation so that it could annex San Pedro for the Port of Los Angeles. Shoestring annexations were made illegal in California in the 1950s, after 2 very notable shoestring annexations: Santa Barbara did a shoestring to annex its airport, and San Diego did it to annex San Ysidro, to be on the international border. What makes these shoestring annexations particularly notable is that the shoestring goes under water! Santa Barbara: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...itled64984.png ahstamant.com San Diego; the shoestring goes through San Diego Bay: https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/defau...?itok=iTavoxHd sandiego.gov |
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Also, for a while I always wondered why JPL uses a Pasadena address. I guess it's in that general area. |
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Philadelphia's Ring Cities are all over the place. Here are the main ones and their distances from Center City Philadelphia:
- Camden, NJ (pop. 73,562): ~1 mile E of Center City, Philadelphia (Settled in 1626, Incorporated in 1828) - Atlantic City, NJ (pop. 39,558): ~62 miles SE of Center City, Philadelphia (Incorporated in 1854) - Wilmington, DE (pop. 70,166): ~32 miles SW of Center City, Philadelphia (Settled in 1638, Incorporated in 1731, City Charter in 1832) - Reading, PA (pop. 88,375): ~58 miles WNW of Center City, Philadelphia (Settled 1748, Incorporated in 1847) |
Montréal has an historical ring of satellite industrial/manufacturing towns.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...cc543802_b.jpg |
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Pittsburgh has a ton of these places... small, old industrial cities which developed along with Pittsburgh, but are now just satellites connected by suburban sprawl. Some of the larger of the enormous number of small municipalities in SW PA:
Washington, PA (1781) (pop. ~14,000; peak ~13,000) ~25 miles SW - first place to be named Washington, home of Washington & Jefferson College (1781) Butler, PA (1802) (pop. ~13,000; peak ~24,000) ~25 miles NE - home of the Jeep Greensburg, PA (1799) (pop. ~15,000; peak ~18,000) ~25 miles SE - Greensburg Athletic Association is was one of earliest pro football teams Latrobe, PA (1852) (pop. ~8,000; peak ~12,000) ~30 miles SE - home of Rolling Rock beer, Latrobe Athletic Association was one of earliest pro football teams, home of Arnold Palmer and Mister Rogers, banana split invented there |
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Camden doesn't really seem to be a "ring" city since it's right across the river. Reading is probably there, and Allentown/Lehigh Valley is likely getting there pretty soon. Calling Atlantic City a ring city of Philly is a major stretch though. |
Cleveland's would be Painesville (27 miles NE, founded 1800), Elyria (30 W, 1817), Lorain (30 W, 1807) and Akron (30 S, 1825) - apart from Lorain which borders Elyria, all are county seats of the neighboring counties, all about the same distance away, and all founded around the same time as Cleveland (1796). Now we are all connected by glorious sprawl too.
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Santa Monica, Calif: first settled in the 1700s and incorporated in 1886
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Reading is a part of the Philadelphia CSA, so absolutely qualifies and acts as a Ring City to Philadelphia. I would absolutely say Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton (Lehigh Valley) are indeed ring cities of Philadelphia, but again, they’re not a part of the Philadelphia MSA or CSA on paper, which is why I didn’t include them. Atlantic City is 100% a ring city of Philadelphia. It grew up as a resort city for Philadelphia. Look up its history. Even to this day, the only commuter rail line into Atlantic City is from Philadelphia. Furthermore, Atlantic City is a part of the Philadelphia CSA. Of course, I didn’t include the numerous smaller “Ring Cities” in the Philadelphia area like Media, West Chester, Doylestown, Ambler, Norristown, Phoenixville, Newark, Bristol, Burlington, Mount Holly, Vineland, Glassboro, etc. etc. |
Hamilton and Oshawa are the only two real "cities" with a sizeable old urban core and an industrial feel that are less than an hour's drive from downtown Toronto. They are sort of ringing Toronto to the East and West.
Brampton's downtown is too small as are Mississauga's old town centres such as Port Credit and Streetsville. Same with Whitby, Newmarket and Aurora, they have old "small town" cores that are surrounded by suburbia, and don't feel like real "cities" in their own right. You have go a bit farther out before you get to the outer Golden Horseshoe cities such as Brantford, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, St. Catharines/Niagara Falls and Barrie, which are all about 1 to 1.5 hours away from the city centre by car. All of these cities are connected to Toronto by Go Transit. |
Seattle would include:
Tacoma about 30 miles south. It was roughly equal to Seattle until 1900 or so. It's a seaport and military city, while its white collar workers often commute to Seattle. It also has reservation land close to the core, so there are big casinos. It has a reviving downtown aided by a growing UW Tacoma campus. Settled by whites in 1864 (after battles when they originally left) and incorporated in 1875. The view of Mt. Rainier is like Seattle's but 25 miles closer. Everett is 30 miles north. It's home to the largest Boeing factory, and the largest Navy base established during the Home Port program of the 80s/90s. Also a growing/reviving downtown. Settled by whites in the 1860s and incorporated in 1893. Bremerton is closer, but across Puget Sound. People commute to Downtown Seattle by ferry. Bremerton has one of the Navy's largest shipyards. It's smaller than the others. Bremerton was established as a Navy base in 1891 and incorporated in 1901. |
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In my country, crossing the borders to Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy or Spain takes nothing! Not even a second, because it's all the EU. But over there in NA... There must still be an administration routine or procedure of sorts. That must be seriously annoying on a daily basis. That is even nonsensical, quite obviously. |
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Waukegan and Gary didn't have the river mill economy, but they did serve as trans-shipment points for lake shipping before the railroads arrived. None of these places were commuter suburbs in the modern sense - the residents didn't participate in the broader Chicago economy, but their work product went to Chicago warehouses before being shipped across the nation. This relationship is pretty clear when you look at the second tier of satellites - North Chicago, West Chicago, Chicago Heights and East Chicago. These were not river or lake-shipping towns, so they didn't really exist until some industrialists decided they could do their manufacturing "out in the countryside" while still sending their product by rail back to Chicago for sales and distro. |
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It went from a population of virtually zero in 1900 to a population of 100,000 by 1930. So it didn't really have those decades of independent 19th century early development that the others had. |
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Americans likely won't be able to enter Canada (and vice-versa) till 2021. Except for commerce, and a few extreme exceptions, the countries have basically no on-the-ground access.
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Dayton's satellite cities are Troy, Xenia, and Springfield; and depending on who you ask, you could probably add Middletown and Piqua to that list too.
Cincinnati doesn't really have a lot of satellite cities other than Hamilton. Everything else is really a core city like Covington or a total sprawlburb like Mason that does have a 19th-century "downtown", but it's barely a blip on the map. |
for st louis the true historical “ring“ cities would have to be like st. charles, florissant, cahokia, even ste genevieve and other 18th, or even 17th century (cahokia, illinois the canadien settlement not the mississippian civilization was founded in 1696) french colonial regional cities and settlements.
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Atlantic City is nowhere near that in the case of Philadelphia. Nor is Reading, really (not yet, at least... it is connected via the 422 corridor, but not fully surrounded by the “Philly area” by any means). Similarly with Allentown/Lehigh a valley, though even less so. Trenton functions as far more of a “ring city” for Philadelphia than it does for NYC obviously. I just don’t think that CSA classifications necessarily fit for Steely’s example. |
For Miami, I would think Hialeah, Coral Gables, and Miami Beach are the main ring cities within Dade County. Outside, maybe Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach have the same role?
For NYC, Newark and New Haven probably would fit the bill. Brooklyn too historically before it got pulled into the greater city. Atlanta: Marietta for sure. There’s so many minor communities around the city that either were historically small towns or newer suburban developments. LA: Santa Monica, Long Beach, Pasadena, Hollywood come immediately to mind. |
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yeah, places like AC weren't really what i had in mind when i created the thread, but i also didn't spell out any ground rules, leaving the topic open to a lot of interpretation. by "historical ring cities", i meant small cities that formed independent from, and outside of, their alpha city's Urban Area (ie. not contiguous with it at the time), that then grew to some modest established size in the pre-war era (say, at least 25,000 people by 1940), and were then fully consumed by post-war sprawl into the alpha city's Urban Area over the past 8 decades. |
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still on a continuum. just like the crescent of french founded cities around st. louis. they formed a sort of regional unit smaller than a state, territory, or province. |
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Also, I'd call Middletown a shared satellite city of Cincinnati and Dayton. It's in Cincy's MSA, and their public schools play in an athletic league with the Cincy northern suburban districts like Princeton, Sycamore, Lakota, etc. |
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There is another ring of towns a little further out like Ottawa, DeKalb or Kankakee that were also part of the hinterland, but with a slightly weaker connection. One question I've wondered is, can these towns gentrify since they offer a more authentic urban experience in the suburbs? I've always thought Elgin would eventually gentrify, with access to Chicago and Tollway corridor jobs. But maybe their "urban-lite" status is the worst of both worlds? Waukegan and Gary are probably too far destroyed - which is a shame, since the lake is a huge amenity especially in Waukegan. The closest analogies I can think of are Lowell and Worcester, MA which have seen limited success with downtown redevelopment but their neighborhoods have not significantly turned over and average incomes remain unchanged. |
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I imagine if someone from Waukegan, Elgin, Aurora, or Joliet was asked where they were from by a non-Chicagoan or non-Chicago region person, that someone would likely respond that they were from Chicago. But if someone from Atlantic City or Allentown or Reading was asked where they were from by a non-regional resident, that person would rarely, if ever, claim that they were from Philadelphia. Maybe saying that they’re about an hour outside of Philly if the questioner was unfamiliar. |
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Gary's Marquette Park it a true gem, escpecially with its early 20th century pavilions and other park structures restored. https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6178...!7i7000!8i3500 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6179...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6193...7i16384!8i8192 and close access to indiana dunes national and state parks (probably the best natural areas in the entire chicagoland region) is also a huge plus. but yeah, Gary is too far gone, and too heavy on real-deal heavy industrial (steel making, oil refining, etc.), for it to gentrify anytime soon. |
^ Yeah I forgot about Miller - I actually have some friends (definitely creative class/stereotypical gentrifier types) who just moved there. But it's really the opposite of what I'm talking about. It's not super walkable, not very dense or urban. Even the sidewalks are pretty patchy. It just happens to lie within Gary city limits. Definitely different than, say, Elgin's West Side.
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What ring cities have their own : Zoo Two State Universities Hospital System Children's Hospital Art Museum Syphony Orchestra Airport Etc.... Due to Sprawl the Akron area and Cleveland area are neighbors but it's not a sattelite or ring city, like a Waukegan to Chicago or Lorain to Cleveland. |
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it's "walkable" in the sense that some streets have sidewalks and you can walk your dog around the neighborhood, but other than the beach/lakefront itself, there's not a whole lot to actually walk to - a pizza place, a cafe, a mini mart, that's about it. i was just pointing out that gary's beaches & dunes are even nicer than waukegan's, IMO. |
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you might also get a "chicagoland" or "just outside chicago" as well, depending on the person. |
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Yet, the region is not on the level of a Dallas or Minneapolis, and Akron is probably not large enough in its own right to be considered a smaller “twin”. Cleveland’s sprawl grew to connect with Akron, not the other way around, and to such an extent that the Akron area has come to function as “suburban Cleveland”. Based on the initial thread topic description, Akron has pretty much become a ring city of Cleveland. It’s not a knock on Akron, so don’t take it that way. It’s much more of a statement on the vast developed area of the NE Ohio region, of which Cleveland is the undisputed capital. Quote:
It’s interesting that when he played for Cleveland, LeBron James was often referred to the hometown boy or some reference was made to his hometown being Cleveland. Yet, he is from Akron. :) |
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more than any other large paired US cities, minneapolis/st. paul most fully embody the "twin city" dynamic. neither one is a ring or satellite city for the other. they function much more as equalish dual nodes of one single continuous city. for starters, they directly abut each other, sharing a 6 mile long municipal border. their populations are fairly close; minneapolis 429K vs. st. paul 308K. they were both incorporated very close in time. minneapolis 1867 vs. st. paul 1854. the two downtown are only 8.5 miles apart, connected by an intra-city light rail line, not commuter rail. they split major league sports. MLB, NFL, & NBA are in minneapolis. NHL & MLS are in st. paul. (notice how all the major sports teams are named "minnesota", never one city over the other). the main art museums and convention center are in minneapolis, the main science and history museums are in st. paul. minneapolis has the univeristy of minnesoata, st. paul is minnesota's st. capital. and on and on. they really do function more like one single city with two major downtown nodes than any other large US city pair that i can think of. |
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Cleveland-Akron seems more analogous to Detroit-Flint, except closer to each other.
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That’s definitely not the case with Dallas and Fort Worth, which like Cleveland and Akron, are connected by newer sprawl (DFW on a much greater level obviously), but still are 30+ miles from each other and maintain much more distinct individual identities and attributes and institutions. DFW really grew together rapidly, whereas it seems Cleveland expanded to include Akron within its orbit. Whether or not Ft. Worth has become a ring city of Dallas is debatable, I guess, based on what parameters one wants to consider. I can see how it could be, but at the same time with nearly 1M in population in the city and over 2M with its bordering suburban counties (Parker, Wise, 1/2 of Denton)Fort Worth is a large American city in its own right. Akron, on the other hand, seems to have become part of “Greater Cleveland” via urban decline-induced suburban sprawl... and since you can’t sprawl into the lake, Cleveland’s sprawl fully encompassed locales to the east and west on the lakeshore and pushed south to connect and pull in the Akron area in the 1980s to present day. |
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