Quote:
Originally Posted by lio45
It's interesting to see the difference between places that didn't have any new land (the settled parts of Quebec, NS, Newfoundland) versus places that did (Canada, U.S.) because as I pointed out, in Quebec, the cities that were already big did not get dethroned, same thing with Halifax and St. John's keeping their positions for centuries and likely continuing forever. However, if you have a relatively empty West or Sunbelt, then yeah, it's very possible that new big cities will emerge there, and maybe pass existing ones.
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We tend to forget about the places that used to be more prominent than they are today. In 1870 or so, Halifax and Saint John NB were about the same size. In 1850 it was about the same size as Toronto.
Shelburne, NS peaked at around 17,000 people in the 1780's. It was the biggest town/city in British North America at the time and fourth largest in North America. It has 1,700 people today. If you look on Google Maps you'll see a lot of old streets that were probably surveyed in the 1700's and are mostly empty today. A large number of settlers moved there after the American Revolution but the economy there collapsed. There wasn't enough opportunity in that area for the population; the farmland was poor and in short supply, for example.
There was also Louisbourg, which was razed, but would have rivalled Quebec City and Montreal at its height. The
Sydney NS area had 110,000 people in 1941. It wasn't much smaller than Halifax or, say, Calgary back then. Today it has about as many people as it did in 1931.
Atlantic Canada has had a much more tumultuous history than the rest of the country.
I agree that Canada's much more stable and settled today than it was in 1600-1900 though, and that it's therefore likely we will see fewer changes in the future. Then again I wouldn't make any predictions for timescales longer than a few decades. Changes that seem slow to humans can end up being dramatic when compounded over many decades.
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