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Yeah, but does it really matter is a city's current growth and wealth is due to a political compromise reached 200 years ago versus a series of random factors that stretch back 400 years? In both cases, the current citizens and leaders of DC and Boston are basically living in large part off factors that happened before any of us were born.
I like Boston. In many ways its a better city than DC. It has done a nice job of reinventing itself into an healthy, modestly growing, eds/meds/biotech hub. Its relatively affluent and cosmopolitan. But, it's not like its transforming into a major world city like Toronto or spinning off globally dominant corporations like Silicon Valley. I guess I just see DC as a more important place. Although, both frankly strike me as having provincial, steady as you go civic leadership.
But I also dont think theres a bigger gap between DC and Boston than DC Philly in terms of importance
Its like
NYC
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DC
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Boston
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Philly
I dont actually know anything important and unique tp Philly in the present day
I know you said "the present day," but trading on the past is something that distinguishes Philadelphia as a tourist destination from its Northeast peers (including Washington in this group for purposes of this argument. Blame or thank Amtrak and the predecessor Pennsylvania Railroad for blurring the Mason-Dixon Line (the Pennsylvania-Maryland border).
Philadelphia is the birthplace of the nation. That makes it unique among American cities.
But as for present-day stuff: It has developed a pretty robust biomedical ecosystem as well. Not as large or as prominent as Boston's, but large all the same, and anchored by two prestigious medical schools and several pharma firms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Losfrisco
I'm not even saying saying that D.C. isn't the winner here.
I'm saying invoking capital status doesn't make for a very persuasive argument.
Think about some of the other big world capital cities. Do you see them reminding people that they are the capital as often as DC?
In a more traditional country, the national capital would likely have remained in an already existing city, and before settling in the ten-mile-square District called for in the Constitution, it traveled between two such cities, Philadelphia and New York.
But we weren't a traditional country; we declared on our Great Seal that we represented the coming of a "new world order" (novus ordo seclorum, found on the reverse of the seal). And like several other countries whose histories didn't stretch back centuries or millennia, we decided to build a new city explicitly for the purpose of serving as the capital.
And one thing most of the purpose-built national capitals (Brasilia, Abuja, Canberra...) share is a relatively unimportant role in the cutural, financial and social life of their countries. It's more a testimony to the growth in size and power of the American national government (commensurate with the country's stature in the world) than it is to anything inherent to DC that Washington is the exception to this rule.
St. Petersburg is also an exception to this rule, but the national capital moved back to Moscow after the Russian Revolution, so it has to trade on something else.
Just about all the other big world capital cities were cities in their own right before their national governments rose to importance. They don't need to rely on their capital status to be important.
It's really only beein within the laxt 50 years or so that Washington has ceased to be a "company town," and even with diversification the Feds still play an outsized role in defining the city.
I know you said "the present day," but trading on the past is something that distinguishes Philadelphia as a tourist destination from its Northeast peers (including Washington in this group for purposes of this argument. Blame or thank Amtrak and the predecessor Pennsylvania Railroad for blurring the Mason-Dixon Line (the Pennsylvania-Maryland border).
Philadelphia is the birthplace of the nation. That makes it unique among American cities.
But as for present-day stuff: It has developed a pretty robust biomedical ecosystem as well. Not as large or as prominent as Boston's, but large all the same, and anchored by two prestigious medical schools and several pharma firms.
In a more traditional country, the national capital would likely have remained in an already existing city, and before settling in the ten-mile-square District called for in the Constitution, it traveled between two such cities, Philadelphia and New York.
But we weren't a traditional country; we declared on our Great Seal that we represented the coming of a "new world order" (novus ordo seclorum, found on the reverse of the seal). And like several other countries whose histories didn't stretch back centuries or millennia, we decided to build a new city explicitly for the purpose of serving as the capital.
And one thing most of the purpose-built national capitals (Brasilia, Abuja, Canberra...) share is a relatively unimportant role in the cutural, financial and social life of their countries. It's more a testimony to the growth in size and power of the American national government (commensurate with the country's stature in the world) than it is to anything inherent to DC that Washington is the exception to this rule.
St. Petersburg is also an exception to this rule, but the national capital moved back to Moscow after the Russian Revolution, so it has to trade on something else.
Just about all the other big world capital cities were cities in their own right before their national governments rose to importance. They don't need to rely on their capital status to be important.
It's really only beein within the laxt 50 years or so that Washington has ceased to be a "company town," and even with diversification the Feds still play an outsized role in defining the city.
The US Capital went from Philly > Baltimore > Philly > Lancaster > York > Philly > Princeton > Annapolis > Trenton > NYC > Philly > DC.
Boston was never considered as it was under British occupation.
The US Capital went from Philly > Baltimore > Philly > Lancaster > York > Philly > Princeton > Annapolis > Trenton > NYC > Philly > DC.
Boston was never considered as it was under British occupation.
The British evacuated Boston in March 1776. The British quickly left almost the rest of New England (other than Newport RI, which was not abandoned by them until October 1779, and Castine in MA's District of Maine which was invested by a British expeditionary force in June 1779 and didn't leave until the Treaty of Paris) and other than periodic raids on coastal ports (e.g., Machias in MA's District of Maine in 1777; Groton CT in September 1781), the *hot* phase of the War for Independence was over in New England.
I think somewhere someone was saying being the Capital really isn’t critically important to Dc when it really really is.
But also running the most important country in the world is very important so I don’t know why you wouldn’t get credit for it.
I also think there is a feeling Boston built Harvard. The reason Harvard isn’t in Charleston, SC is because of something inherent in the culture of the city. New York built Wall Street its industry came out of local vision and drive. New York bear out Boston, Philly and Baltimore fair and square. Chicagos ascent over St Louis had to do with forward looking industrialists who believed in Railroads over riverboats. SF built its tech from unique labor laws and culture, DC was gifted the Government. There was no fair and square competition. They didn’t rise to the top on any merit of the city itself.
That said DC is number a very clear #2 if you consider it Northeast (I don’t)
now I understand. You could make a similar argument based on geography for cities like New York or SF.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Losfrisco
Hang on, I can think of plenty of capitals, both state and national, that wouldn't lose a centimeter of relevance if their capital status was revoked.
Are you saying this wouldn't be the case for D.C.if they lost capital status?
That's clearly what I said. There's your gotcha.
Being a capitol city matters no matter how you slice it. If Paris, Moscow, and London for example who absolutely lose relevance if there were not the capitols of their respective governments.
E.g. if Philly was the capitol or Trenton was teh capitol, they would be very different cities and much more important than they are.
I agree that DCs influence is basically almost entirely wrapped up in the fact that it's the capital. Take away the government and you basically have either a midsized Mid-Atlantic city like Richmond or a Frederick style satellite city of Baltimore. It has had only the most marginal success in diversifying it's economy. That basically all flows from a political compromise struck over 200 years ago.
But, NYCs success is due in part to lucky geography relative to Boston or Philly. A natural harbor with the only river valley that cuts through the mountains to the Great Lakes region. That's basically irrelevant today, but it allowed the city to build any early lead over rivals. Harvard and MITs status as elite universities were established long before anyone alive today. Boston being at the extreme north Eastern end of the country didn't get the same great migration/white flight dynamic as other northern industrial cities. At this point, Boston or NYCs relative success has as much or more to do with being born on 3rd base rather than winning any great meritocratic urban competition.
This is pretty untrue. Boston was a has been back water during the great migration. Both of its industries Healthcare and Education were not supposed to ever be lucrative as they were not profit driven. Had bosotn had a decent economy in 1955 it would have received more great migration- it didn’t have a ton of easy open jobs to attract folks. But it certainly still did. Alternatively it has always had a stream of West Indians due to the triangular trade and then later due to ties to food shipment and the like originating United Fruit Company in Jamaica and going to Boston Fruit Conpany up there. But it experienced white flight as bad if not worse than most cities. For sure. You’re talking about a city that went from 810,000 whites in 1950 to 290,000 in 2000. Unlike midwestern cities it began to stem its losses in the latter half of the 1980s as things fundamental began to change under Reagan.Xs
Its success was not ever a given precisely due to its location in NYCs shadow and its relatively low ceiling for wages. This all changed with the ultra privatization and inflation of college tuition and the administrative bloat and the beast that the healthcare industry became. Boston was going to live and die off of Textiles and its Navy yard. If anything Boston is lucky to have declined 30 years before everyone else and began its turn around well before everyone else. But that was sort of derailed (and I mean very close to fully derailed and collapse) by racial riots and fights over a 10 year period of 1975-1985.
Boston deserves credit for the study provincial leader ship you’re talking about Kevin White’s slowed the economic bleeding and modernized Downtown through deliberate action. But mayor Menino through meticulous dedication worked really really hard to deliberately build Boston into. What is today if you go around and talk to local Bostonians they will tell you “Menino cleaned up this city” “Boston was filthy before Menino” something I heard all the time all the time as a kid like a refrain.
now I understand. You could make a similar argument based on geography for cities like New York or SF.
That's clearly what I said. There's your gotcha.
Being a capitol city matters no matter how you slice it. If Paris, Moscow, and London for example who absolutely lose relevance if there were not the capitols of their respective governments.
E.g. if Philly was the capitol or Trenton was teh capitol, they would be very different cities and much more important than they are.
I'm not 100% convinced of this.
Neither Sydney nor Melbourne strike me as less important because Australia moved its capital to Canberra in 1900.
Ditto Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo after the capital left Rio for Brasilia in 1961 (and the national capital took a back seat to the bigger industrial city even when Rio was the capital).
Ottawa was an extant city rather than a planned capital, but it's been less important than Toronto and Montréal ever since Canada became an independent nation. Both cities have managed to remain Canada's most prominent despite neither of them having served as the capital (and Montréal has never even been the capital of its province, either).
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