Can You See Your City Geographically Situated Elsewhere?

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by badrunner

San Miguel = Sea Doggo Island

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aka the Pt. Bennett Great White buffet.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Point Reyes is almost an island!

With a few more meters of sea level rise it will actually become an island, separated from the mainland by the Tomales Strait, no longer just a bay. A similar amount of sea level rise will turn Catalina into two islands at the narrow isthmus which also would also become a shallow and narrow strait separating the small west Catalina from the larger east Catalina.

[mrnyc]

not straying too far for these, but i could see cleveland more centrally sited along lake erie a little east of where it is around the chargin river or grand river, or a little west around the rocky river or black river i guess, but really it's by far best sited by right where it is around the cuyahoga river. one thing i cannot imagine is it being a landlocked interior city.

for nyc i guess i could see it being more centrally sited along the nj coastline, like with jc/newark/elizabeth being the core, which might have made manhattan more brooklyn-like, but it's hard to imagine and even seems sadly wasteful of the geographically locked in and loaded manhattan real estate potential.

[Centropolis]

i was a bit more abstract, earlier but one of the reasons why cairo didnt work was because there was already a city functionally at the ohio/mississippi river interface - st. louis - thus cairo was already redundant. east-west trade just made the right turn for the short trip up to st louis. the mississippi river was reliably navigable without massive engineering projects up to st louis already.

conversely st. louis could theoretically have been near where cairo is if the location of st. louis wasnt already one of the best in the mid-mississippi valley. cairo itself was not located in a great spot locally for for expansion, everything had to be contained by levees. st. louis on the other hand was built on a gentle limestone saddle with springs and plenty of high ground to spread across.

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, from 30,000 ft. Cairo looks like a natural. I mean , the very tip of the confluence of the mississippi AND ohio rivers. Jackpot! Pittsburgh 2.0 here we come!

But once you get on the ground, you realize just how "flood-plainy" much of its immediate environs are.

Sure, we're a clever species and have engineered cities into existence that otherwise shouldn't be where they are, but sometimes the path of least resistance is the wiser choice, and the high ground St. Louis sits upon was a MUCH wiser locale for a large interior river city.

[kcexpress69]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Doesn't the city function as a single metropolitan area? Not as if there was a fence at the boundary, especially since much of the boundary is the river. Although different tax policies and other laws could complicate things I suppose. How do Kansas City KS & MO feel about the other city? Is there a rivalry? If I lived there, I would just regard it as different parts of a single city, just like East & West Berlin are now. When police chase a suspect, do they stop at the state line?

There is somewhat of a rivalry. Many businesses and corporations tend to cross the state line for better tax incentives. Waddell and Reed recently crossed over from Overland Park to build a brand new office building in downtown KCMO, before they were bought out. (the building is still being built) The Dairy Farmers association left northland KCMO (north of the river) to build a brand new building in western KCK , near the Speedway, and Soccer Stadium which also was formerly located at Arrowhead Stadium in KCMO. The practice is generally frowned upon and both side have informally agreed to not use incentives to lure companies across the state line.

I'm pretty much used to it, being a resident in the metro area for 50 years, but I can't help but feel, like if there was no state line there, how much stronger would the city be? How would it change the borders? To the southwest, parts of KCK would be gobbled up, along with northwest Johnson County and perhaps take huge chunks of Leawood and Overland Park, depending on how far south it goes. Hypothetically, if the northland remained intact, Kansas City would have close to 700,000 people instead of almost 500,000. Larger tax base, and less fighting over big projects which might require a vote.