[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

to dig down a bit further, this has already been covered, but both new orleans and st. louis had large, productive hinterlands to draw wealth from (as did every other major north american city to rise before world war 2) and function as transportation centers . savannah and charleston had swampy, low productivity, low connectivity, highly stratified, entrenched economies. new orleans became fueled by st. louis and vice versa, so the entire center of the continent fueled those 2 cities which worked in tandem (although st. louis traded with the mid atlantic heavily as well) until chicago started hammering away (another discussion).

as far as i know, charleston and savannah were more (economically) isolated, excepting the higher classes which i'm sure interacted with the northeast. much more stagnant economies, and were geographically old backwater to the westward surge of american activity. not anymore, of course.

Right. An important corollary of this is the reason NYC boomed was because of the construction of the Erie Canal, which meant that all trade via the Great Lakes traveled down the Hudson until the Saint Lawrence Seaway was completed. So NYC was not only a great east coast port with a productive hinterland, but also served the same function that New Orleans did for the entire Mississippi basin. Without the Erie Canal it probably would have been in the same size range as Boston or Philadelphia.