Cities That Could HAVE Been, But Just Didn't Quite Finish Or Go In That Direction.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Montreal did ok I'd say. Unless one wants to argue it could have been Canada's Mexico City or Buenos Aires.

It did, but you can tell it was meant to be something more.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

This is probably the correct answer. The Ohio Valley cities are older than the Great Lakes cities, but their growth was fueled by Philadelphia and Baltimore financiers who were much less aggressive and more sedate than the New York financiers engaged in building up the Lakes. Had St. Louis benefited from that kind of financial aggression, it would have already been the undisputed King of the Midwest by the time Chicago even developed into a major city.

This one's always confused me. Cheyenne and Pueblo were the major rail junctions historically; a transcon route terminating in Denver (the Moffat line) didn't get built until the 1920s.

So why did Denver -- which was kind of out of the way of major late 19th century transportation flows -- grow so big in the first place?

Wasn't it the capital of Kansas Territory at one time?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Montreal did ok I'd say. Unless one wants to argue it could have been Canada's Mexico City or Buenos Aires.

I tend to agree with this.

Looking back at Canada's history, Montreal's dominance is sometimes exaggerated. It had a window of only a few decades when it was much bigger than the next largest city (say twice as large; Buenos Aires and Mexico City have a larger lead than this). Montreal and Toronto were in the same ballpark by the late 1800's and in the early 1800's Montreal was not very large. Montreal pulled ahead during Canada's early industrial period, from around 1840-1890.

Today people tend to exaggerate Toronto's dominance. For all the talk, Montreal is still 2/3 as large. So I am not sure why we'd assume that an alternate universe Montreal would be many times larger than Toronto. Canada is a decentralized country of strong provinces and has always been so.

Saint John on the other hand is an example where a city really did kind of fall off the rails. It is barely bigger now than it was in the 1800's. It's easy to imagine it growing to be many times larger than where it ended up. That's what would have happened had there simply been less outmigration or wasting away of industry, and had the city roughly kept up with Toronto and Montreal. One simple alternative scenario to imagine is the one where all of the Maritimes remained as one colony (Nova Scotia up to 1784), and that colony ended up with one or two main cities just as most other provinces have. Instead the Maritimes got broken up 3 ways and then the urban development in New Brunswick was carved into 3 portions.

[ue]

Originally Posted by someone123

I tend to agree with this.

Looking back at Canada's history, Montreal's dominance is sometimes exaggerated. It had a window of only a few decades when it was much bigger than the next largest city (say twice as large; Buenos Aires and Mexico City have a larger lead than this). Montreal and Toronto were in the same ballpark by the late 1800's and in the early 1800's Montreal was not very large. Montreal pulled ahead during Canada's early industrial period, from around 1840-1890.

Today people tend to exaggerate Toronto's dominance. For all the talk, Montreal is still 2/3 as large. So I am not sure why we'd assume that an alternate universe Montreal would be many times larger than Toronto. Canada is a decentralized country of strong provinces and has always been so.

Saint John on the other hand is an example where a city really did kind of fall off the rails. It is barely bigger now than it was in the 1800's. It's easy to imagine it growing to be many times larger than where it ended up. That's what would have happened had there simply been less outmigration or wasting away of industry, and had the city roughly kept up with Toronto and Montreal. One simple alternative scenario to imagine is the one where all of the Maritimes remained as one colony (Nova Scotia up to 1784), and that colony ended up with one or two main cities just as most other provinces have. Instead the Maritimes got broken up 3 ways and then the urban development in New Brunswick was carved into 3 portions.

Montreal has achieved a lot, but you can clearly tell in the "bones" of the city that it was meant to be much more, especially vis-a-vis Toronto, with its crammed streets and lack of grandeur* from the pre-war era. Toronto was the more parochial counterpart to Montreal's metropolitan scope. They were both major centres of immigration and culture, but Montreal was definitely the one who acted the part into the 1960s. You can see this in how people used to speak of Montreal, and how much higher it hanged in people's minds, in a similar way to how Toronto is now viewed, even further away in Western Canada.

But yes, compared to somewhere like Saint John or even Halifax, Montreal has done well for itself, and has asserted itself as a very unique city in North America, with a now-growing economy. It didn't stop growing a century ago. Even in its 1980s-1990s nadir, it was still a major national force.

*yes there was the Royal York, the Casa Loma, et al, but compared to Montreal, Toronto in aggregate lacked the grandeur of Montreal in 1945

[Kenneth]

Toledo Ohio was actually supposed to be the second largest midwest city, not Detroit. Toledo had already started to surpass Cleveland and Cincinatti. Then small tug-o-war took place between Ohio and Michigan over the land that Toledo occupies. Toledo was already in Michigan, but when the Ambassador Bridge was built to Windsor, Ohio wanted Toledo because they felt that Michigan would allow Toledo on their border to falter and become an eyesore as everyone left and flocked to Detroit. Toledo would have grew faster and bigger than Detroit because of its location. Had the bridge not been built from Detroit to Canada, all the wealrh would have wound up in Ohio. This is why suburbs outside Toledo look young and incomplete.

[Kenneth]

Toledo Ohio was actually supposed to be the second largest midwest city, not Detroit. Toledo had already started to surpass Cleveland and Cincinatti. Then small tug-o-war took place between Ohio and Michigan over the land that Toledo occupies. Toledo was already in Michigan, but when the Ambassador Bridge was built to Windsor, Ohio wanted Toledo because they felt that Michigan would allow Toledo on their border to falter and become an eyesore as everyone left and flocked to Detroit. Toledo would have grew faster and bigger than Detroit because of its location. Had the bridge not been built from Detroit to Canada, all the wealrh would have wound up in Ohio. This is why suburbs outside Toledo look young and incomplete, the money left and moved to Detroit, where the Fords live.

[twister244]

I think the two big reasons Denver won the fight with Cheyenne were proximity to better water resources (as mentioned earlier), and the gold rush during the 1800s. I believe Cheyenne had been banking on the railroad to be the catalyst for development. However, I believe Denver was able to get a leg of it to go down to the city. That was probably won of the final nails in the coffin for Cheyenne. For a while though in their early lives, those two cities were definitely competing. Some cool history there....

[Docta_Love]

Originally Posted by Kenneth

Toledo Ohio was actually supposed to be the second largest midwest city, not Detroit. Toledo had already started to surpass Cleveland and Cincinatti. Then small tug-o-war took place between Ohio and Michigan over the land that Toledo occupies. Toledo was already in Michigan, but when the Ambassador Bridge was built to Windsor, Ohio wanted Toledo because they felt that Michigan would allow Toledo on their border to falter and become an eyesore as everyone left and flocked to Detroit. Toledo would have grew faster and bigger than Detroit because of its location. Had the bridge not been built from Detroit to Canada, all the wealrh would have wound up in Ohio. This is why suburbs outside Toledo look young and incomplete.

Huh? Toledo most def has the best natural port on the Great Lakes which is why Ohio when it became a state moved survey lines that had the southern border of MI at the southern tip of Lake Michigan. It was very confusing as Toledo was claimed by Ohio but the US post office was still said to be the post office of Toledo, MI. This is of course up until the Toledo war where state militia's from MI & OH fought a "battle" in Perrysburg where only casualty was only one wounded, to stop the fighting and compensate MI for its "stolen" territory which was expected to grow into the premier port on the lakes the western half of the Upper Peninsula was taken by the US Gov. from the territory of Wisconsin and given over to state of Michigan as compensation. Sound familiar? lol. I believe Indiana actually took a bigger slice out of MI with the same "bad surveying" but no one cared or something. I suppose Toledo was the big prize so it would be better to go all out for it but in the end its a bit ironic that the western UP and its Iron, copper and later Taconite mines may have played a role as Detroit becoming the dominate industrial giant it became. Both sides claim to be the winner in the war MI with the western UP being the most beautiful part of the state that has payed for it self over and over with its abundant natural resources and now its growing tourist industry and OH got to keep Toledo and its great natural port. Though I think that Detroit and Toledo lost out on being more connected with each other which would have been better for the region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War

As for Detroit becoming Detroit as we know it today access to abundant minerals from mines in said compensated territory played a role as did the fact that Detroit had all the right proto-industries that with the introduction of the internal combustion engine made it a natural spot. While Cleveland was the early center of the US auto industry Detroit was not far behind if i recall my history Detroit was just better placed geographically as the straights of Detroit are the linchpin that hold the Upper and Lower Great Lakes together, think how Detroit is seen as the official center of the "Great Lakes Megalopolis". Back then what mattered more than surrounding markets was that Detroit is in between the great foundries of PA and OH and the mines of the UP and MN.

Once again i'm reciting my history from head so correct me if i'm wrong there was also a difference in production style between MI and OH where Cleveland ended up as the center of high end auto production as it already had established companies with good reputation for quality. Where Detroit ended up gearing up to produce mass amounts of affordable cars with the help of course of Henry Ford's lil invention, as to where HF would end up in the end Dearborn was always the answer even if he left state to found a company he always had a dream to rebuild his home town. In the end the big Detroit automakers could weather the great depression while the few high end automakers left in Cleveland were put out of business or bought up.

Toledo certainly has a bit of a different history with its most famous export Willy's Jeep coming out of WW2 which by then Detroit was the arsenal of democracy and an industrial and finical behemoth. Ohio's history as the early center of the auto industry and the ancillary it produced provided great suppliers of the Detroit automakers of things such as Glass and Tires also steel but by the teens and twenty's Detroit was already the dominate player by far the Ambassador Bridge didn't doom Toledo as rail had already eroded its importance as a port. This is just like how St. Louis lost its position as the logistics hub for the plains to Chicago a city also with a port but was better placed to be a rail and later road logistical hub.

[Buckeye Native 001]

The Toledo War is one of the stupidest chapters in American/Midwest history and Ohio might've technically "won" by keeping Toledo, but who was the real victor long-term?

[Docta_Love]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

The Toledo War is one of the stupidest chapters in American/Midwest history and Ohio might've technically "won" by keeping Toledo, but who was the real victor long-term?

I agree the end result is Detroit and Toldeo being the two biggest cities around and so close aren't as connected as Detroit is to Flint, Lansing or Ann Arbor other cities around an hours drive from it. Lose Lose

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

The Toledo War is one of the stupidest chapters in American/Midwest history and Ohio might've technically "won" by keeping Toledo, but who was the real victor long-term?

I was just thinking about this! I also wonder what (if anything) would be different if Chicago has remained part of Wisconsin. Would it have grown to be the Chicago we know today? Would Illinois AND Missouri have signed off on reversing the flow of the river? Doubt it. Would Illinois be Iowa 2.0? Would Milwaukee have developed into a larger hub? Smaller? Chicago, Wisconsin doesn't have the same ring to it as Chicago, Illinois.

[Razor]

It was interesting reading some factoids about Toledo. I never knew that Michigan and Ohio were fighting for Toledo until I read some posts above..Without googling, Jamie Farr is from Toledo isn't he?..Just a strange fact that I picked up somewhere along the line.

[Sun Belt]

I think that St. Louis could've been a mega city given it's location. Endless source of water from the rivers, endless land to develop. 4 seasons but reasonable climate. It could've been a North American megalopolis of trade with a hub and spoke railroad, freeway system with access to the gulf via the MS River. It's about halfway between the east coast and west coast ports and half way between Canada and Mexico.

[Docta_Love]

Originally Posted by Razor

It was interesting reading some factoids about Toledo. I never knew that Michigan and Ohio were fighting for Toledo until I read some posts above..Without googling, Jamie Farr is from Toledo isn't he?..Just a strange fact that I picked up somewhere along the line.

Yeah that was a bit of a wild time in history. Incidentally during the Upper Canadian rebellion there were filibustering expeditions by "patriots" on both sides of the border in SE MI and the Niagara region of NY to take the southern Ontario peninsula from Windsor to Niagara and establish an american style government there. Not sure if there were plans to annex by Michigan and New York if successful or if it was planned to try and from a new entity like Texas it would prolly have depended on which forces were successful and where their loyalties lay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Windsor

I've always wondered what the Detroit area could have been like as a unified entity, if we really wanna dream how 'bout a Manhattan like central district on Grosse Ile perhaps?

Edit; Now that i think about it a city center further south like that Detroit and Toledo could have formed their own lil Chicago and Milwaukee thing goin on down the western coast of Lake Erie.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

I think that St. Louis could've been a mega city given it's location. Endless source of water from the rivers, endless land to develop. 4 seasons but reasonable climate. It could've been a North American megalopolis of trade with a hub and spoke railroad, freeway system with access to the gulf via the MS River. It's about halfway between the east coast and west coast ports and half way between Canada and Mexico.

St Louis does not have a reasonable climate. Like Kansas City the summers are unbearable. There are places with worse summers, but they're not megacities in wealthy countries.

But St Louis and many other Midwestern cities would have been bigger if America (and the world) had continued to develop as expected in the late 19th century. At the time there was real consideration of Chicago as the capital, because it was seen as natural that the capital should be in the middle of the country. If the Industrial Revolution had progressed much more slowly, and natural population growth had remained high for longer, then the center of gravity of the country might well have shifted to the Midwest.

But instead industrialization lasted less than a century before progressing to a services-based age of globalization and returning economic dominance to the coasts. People now live where they want to live, not where the land or geography provides some economic benefit, and so downtown Chicago (and the North Side) became the only place in the Midwest that is really well positioned thanks to sheer scale and opportunities (and it's pseudo-coastal setting... people like water).

[the urban politician]

^ There is really no fundamental reason why "economic dominance" naturally has to be located in coastal cities. There is no natural advantage that I can think of that justifies it--at least in the modern jet and digital age. The fact that this appears to be the pattern in the US is probably more of a product of how this nation developed, really, but even then there is no reason to presume that it must and will remain as such perpetually. If you look at Europe and other continents their largest and most dominant cities aren't necessarily sitting right on the ocean.

[10023]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ There is really no fundamental reason why "economic dominance" naturally has to be located in coastal cities. There is no natural advantage that I can think of that justifies it--at least in the modern jet and digital age. The fact that this appears to be the pattern in the US is probably more of a product of how this nation developed, really, but even then there is no reason to presume that it must and will remain as such perpetually. If you look at Europe and other continents their largest and most dominant cities aren't necessarily sitting right on the ocean.

You might not have read my post, or at least not understood it. Let me help.

The US developed first as a colonial outpost, so cities were on the coast. As the country grew after independence and began to settle its vast interior, economic power shifted toward the Midwest. But then industrialization gave way to globalization, and so yes, a coastal location once again became an advantage. But even more important is the fact that, as you say, people can live wherever they want (within reason) in a services based economy. And people like living on the coast. It provides pleasant scenery and milder weather. People like the beach. All else being equal, a coastline and/or mountains are big selling points in the modern world.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by 10023

St Louis does not have a reasonable climate. Like Kansas City the summers are unbearable. There are places with worse summers, but they're not megacities in wealthy countries.

im sure some amnesia is at work here since im outside typing this in california-y weather. summers can be pretty bad, awful. september to december can be pretty good. i swim in sunny ozark rivers in october. march to may can be pretty good but not as nice (as dry) as september to december...march can be a really nice "reverse autumn" though before the vegetation/pollen. lots of 60 degrees and sunny december days. southern magnolias and european varieties of palms overwinter here. scatterings of truly nice days jan and feb...snow doesn't accumulate or persist in piles at all, melts within a a few days.

summer is pure hell though. if the summer were slightly moderated it would be a pretty reasonable climate. in some kind of medieval context, however, it's a better than average location with the rivers, minerals (iron, lead, and huge forests immediately nearby) and easy access to a massive swath of deep, black illinois soil right on top of it.

st. louis is also naturally dry, sitting on a karst/limestone saddle between two rivers and not former swamp or floodplain like so many american cities. it's a place where people naturally have located for thousands of years, more like the siting of european cities than say a houston. it's not a forced place.

about the general idea of large, important cities being in hot places i think this was already clearly established before the rise of western europe. the largest, most important city in present day america was of course right on top of where st. louis is now, to say nothing of where big population centers were around the planet.

[Centropolis]

as a meteorological footnote, i really do notice the way the summer temperatures moderate as you move eastward across kentucky and cincinnati towards washington dc at this latitude. it's ridiculous how hot it is in st. louis and i try to spend less and less time in town in the summer every year.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by 10023

St Louis does not have a reasonable climate. Like Kansas City the summers are unbearable. There are places with worse summers, but they're not megacities in wealthy countries.

But St Louis and many other Midwestern cities would have been bigger if America (and the world) had continued to develop as expected in the late 19th century. At the time there was real consideration of Chicago as the capital, because it was seen as natural that the capital should be in the middle of the country. If the Industrial Revolution had progressed much more slowly, and natural population growth had remained high for longer, then the center of gravity of the country might well have shifted to the Midwest.

But instead industrialization lasted less than a century before progressing to a services-based age of globalization and returning economic dominance to the coasts. People now live where they want to live, not where the land or geography provides some economic benefit, and so downtown Chicago (and the North Side) became the only place in the Midwest that is really well positioned thanks to sheer scale and opportunities (and it's pseudo-coastal setting... people like water).

By reasonable weather, it really doesn't receive the extremes. Yeah it's hot in the summer, but it's hot basically everywhere in the summer except on the pacific. It has short lived cold snaps in the dead of winter with ice and snow, but for the most part it's pretty moderate.

Besides some of the most intolerable places on the planet in terms of summer heat were home to some of the oldest, largest, wealthiest examples of significant historical human civilizations that flourished before the modern era of AC.

I think St. Louis could've had the potential to collect 10+million if all their cards fell into place.