If NYC didnt exist, what would be the premier US city? (live, best)
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Totally agree with you Deezus that it would be more interesting to discuss the history without NY aspect, but unfortunately if you go back to the first page to the OP and then look at his second post (post 4) it is wrong.
I'm not sure the OP is really clear on what s/he is asking, because Post 6 contradicts Post 4:
Quote:
I agree, but im looking at it just as it is today.
Imagine if the US had developed as it stands today, but without NYC.
Totally agree with you Deezus that it would be more interesting to discuss the history without NY aspect, but unfortunately if you go back to the first page to the OP and then look at his second post (post 4) it is wrong.
The OP is simply asking what is the premier city in the USA without NY. Confusingly he said "if NY did not exist" because not just you and me but a lot of other people assumed he meant never existed. And its not surprising we thought he meant historical because look at the poll choices - Boston and Philadelphia but no Houston, Dallas or Atlanta.
But unfortunately this turns out to be just another - whats the #2 city in the USA thread. And we already have more than a few of them.
Yeah, if that's the case this thread is boring... I honestly don't care what's the #2 city in the US. Los Angeles and Chicago can fight it out to the death. This has been done thousands of times on here already...
It depends on the categories. I guess when it comes to the economy the remainder of the market trading activity would end up on Chicago's La Salle Street. Chicago would then have the largest stock exchange in the country. It already ranks 2nd to NYC. CME which is headquartered in Chicago is also the world's largest futures exchange which already owns the NYMEX in New York. As for national media, I would probably say Atlanta because of CNN or Washington for USA Today. LA may have the largest seaport for ocean logistics but Chicago has the largest rail and trucking freight hub logistics in the entire country.
La Salle Street would become America's next Wall Street based on volume.
CNBC's Rick Santelli financial news is at the Chicago Board of Trade
On finance and "if NYC never existed" remember that Philly had a stock exchange even before Wall St Things moved north as the NYC port drove more commerce into the 19th century
On finance and "if NYC never existed" remember that Philly had a stock exchange even before Wall St Things moved north as the NYC port drove more commerce into the 19th century
I only indicated Chicago based on the current existing state of the cities today if the Big Apple suddenly disappeared. However, if NYC never even existed historically then Philly would have been the largest city in population with all the commerce operations based there instead. Philly would have probably been a much much larger city today. (yes, even bigger than Chicago)
Apologies if I'm repeating anything pointed out previously and especially for the length, it's an intriguing topic, so I took the historical approach.
I'll make the assumption in this thread that New York never existed. That there is no great deep port harbor at the mouth of the Hudson, no Hudson River to build a center of trade upon, and no Long Island to direct ships toward a protected harbor. For our purposes, the Jersey shore simply folds into the Connecticut coast. There is no conceivable reason to develop a city where New York now sits.
I think most of the replies have assumed Philadelphia, Baltimore or Boston would have naturally developed much larger were there no New York, and others simply pushed for LA or Chicago as they've become large metropolises in their own right, but since this premise is by nature counter-factual, I think we're mistaken to just look at numbers, and are overlooking history and some of the reasons New York developed so much quicker and more successfully than its neighbors. I'm not convinced Boston, Philadelphia or Baltimore would simply have picked up the slack to become greater than they are. I could argue they would be less.
First, we cannot overlook that NYC was unmistakably Dutch - in possession for nearly 60 years, and in character long afterward. This I think important. For one, it focused development on a single city and destination port from the mother country for a lengthy period of time. The English had dozens of ports competing for emigrating attention from Britain and the West Indies. Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, yes, but Newport, and Charles Town were among the five largest cities of the American colonies by 1775 (Baltimore was in the top 10). Plymouth, Salem, New Haven, Wilmington, Portsmouth, Providence and smaller cities were the port of call for dozens of ships from abroad each year. In New Netherlands, all ships made for New York (New Amsterdam). Even the French in New France were not so monolithic in their development of Quebec City. Port Royal and Louisbourg were much closer to New Rochelle, France, and Plaisance and Tadoussac were stops en route to Quebec. In short, New York was THE port.
The Dutch character is important. Plymouth and Boston were religious colonies, the half dozen colonies throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire were escaping Puritan oppression, but not terribly open themselves. I'm well aware of Philadelphia's Quaker roots and Maryland's Catholicism, as well as Peter Stuyvesant's disdain for Quakers in New York - but by and large New York was more multicultural and religiously tolerant than other colonies - and the Remonstrance of 1649 gave New York equal rights as any city in Holland - something no British colony shared. Only Philadelphia had anything like that sense of multiculturalism in the 18th century, both communities hosting nearly two dozen church denominations. New England ports did not attract immigrants as New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had - their (New England cities) growth was mostly through birthrate. Finally it should be said that from the start New York was a port to conduct the vast fur trade, linked upriver to Albany. Philadelphia was not settled as a purely financial endeavor, like the Dutch of the 17th century (who were the economic and maritime power in Europe). I think that set it on a path toward accelerated growth in the mid 18th century that Philadelphia, while growing through German migration, just did not take advantage of. There is a reason NYC was the nation's first capitol and its largest city since 1790.
So in colonial America we'd have two competing British colonial regions - the religious New Englanders in the north and the plantation agriculturalists of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas. New Sweden would not have fallen to the Dutch in the Second Northern War, because there would be no NYC to establish a New Netherlands and no strong Dutch colony at New York for Peter Stuyvesant to sail from. Perhaps no Dutch colony at all if the prospect for an immense fur trade from New York did not exist. Could this colony likely have grown to include much of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania? Would Philadelphia even have developed as anything more than a backwater suburb with the Swede's capitol further down the Delaware at Kristina (Wilmington, DE)? It's likely that William Penn's charter for a colony in the Americas would have been elsewhere, further south in the Carolinas perhaps, though not at a great port location of a defeated advisory. While the Carolinas saw immigration of Germans in the 1700s, it was rather modest. Would Penn's colony there have fared any better, or have been a flash in the pan like the Moravian colonies of North Carolina that came and went with a wimper?
Without New York, French influence would have sure extended further into Upstate New York (missionaries and traders visited Syracuse, the Mohawk River, Niagara and the Finger Lakes) and probably Pennsylvania. Somewhere around the border of New England, New France and New Sweden there surely would have been conflict. I imagine like the Atlantic provinces, any French attempts to settle between New England and Virginia/Maryland would have met with a British attempted takeover, but it is interesting to think what a French and Iroquois New York/Pennsylvania/New Jersey may have looked like, and how it would have isolated expansion from western New England and pushed the frontier much further south. Would New Sweden have lasted much longer than it had? Perhaps, immigration was just starting to pick up when the Dutch captured the colony. But Sweden would have had to avoid conflict with the British and French long enough to establish a greater colony, and while both mediated on Sweden's behalf at the conclusion of the Second Northern War in Europe, the British certainly would have had an eye on the Swedish colony in America were it dividing their coastal colonies, the French probably in supporting it as a buffer between the two largest colonial holdings.
It's harder to envision further into the 19th century without New York. I'm strongly inclined to say there would be no Erie Canal. Without the canal, do Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit or Milwaukee come to be metropolises and urban centers? Is there a canal to link the Eastern seaboard with the interior before the coming of rail at all? Or does New Orleans take a more prominent role as the link to the interior of the continent until rail restores trade to points east? Perhaps the great eastern canal simply cuts across the isthmus of southern-most Ontario, linking Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and thus Montreal or Quebec become the hub of the trans-Atlantic trade.
Do we place the capitol at Washington, D.C. in the absence of such a large city at New York? The placement of D.C. was largely symbolic as a balance between North and South. Geographically, D.C. is still rather central, but population-wise, no New York would be a clear shift toward Virginia as the population center. Perhaps Washington is developed further south, nearer to Hampton Roads?
Without New York, which city took up the mantle as the center of commerce and manufacture in the Northeast? Does Boston become the immigrant destination that it would become with the Irish famine to become such a center? Would Philadelphia or Baltimore become great centers of industry and capital? And if not, isn't the balance of power between the slavery-driven economies of the South and the manufacture-driven economies of the North upset? Does the US take a more agrarian outlook in the signing of the Constitution, and are northern states quite so willing to fight for the sake of Union in 1861? In the Revolution and the War of 1812, we probably wouldn't have a sizable population in Upstate New York (whose development depended on trade with the City) to support large militias, and victories at Oriskany, Plattsburgh, Saratoga and Ticonderoga would be less certain, the war effort totally dependent upon New England. I could imagine the British Expeditionary Force would have made for Boston again, rather than making a base at New York, and the outcome of the War of Independence would have been different.
I'll wrap this up, just wanted to put on the historical hat, especially where counter-factual history is involved. Everyone is so quick to point out Chicago or L.A., but take NYC out of the picture and the country looks a lot different than it does today. For all we know, New Orleans would have developed as the premier port and nation's first city, there would be no Philly, Washington a tidewater rather than a backwater early on, and Boston captured early on in the Revolution, squashing the whole American experiment to begin with. Because, you know, everyone needed more reasons to love New York ;-)
I'm not sure the OP is really clear on what s/he is asking, because Post 6 contradicts Post 4:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deezus
Yeah, if that's the case this thread is boring... I honestly don't care what's the #2 city in the US. Los Angeles and Chicago can fight it out to the death. This has been done thousands of times on here already...
It depends on the categories. I guess when it comes to the economy the remainder of the market trading activity would end up on Chicago's La Salle Street. Chicago would then have the largest stock exchange in the country. It already ranks 2nd to NYC. CME which is headquartered in Chicago is also the world's largest futures exchange which already owns the NYMEX in New York. As for national media, I would probably say Atlanta because of CNN or Washington for USA Today. LA may have the largest seaport for ocean logistics but Chicago has the largest rail and trucking freight hub logistics in the entire country.
La Salle Street would become America's next Wall Street based on volume.
CNBC's Rick Santelli financial news is at the Chicago Board of Trade
You mentioned the economics but don't forget the cultural category which LA would win over Chicago. Like you said it depends on what we are talking about.
Apologies if I'm repeating anything pointed out previously and especially for the length, it's an intriguing topic, so I took the historical approach.
I'll make the assumption in this thread that New York never existed. That there is no great deep port harbor at the mouth of the Hudson, no Hudson River to build a center of trade upon, and no Long Island to direct ships toward a protected harbor. For our purposes, the Jersey shore simply folds into the Connecticut coast. There is no conceivable reason to develop a city where New York now sits.
I think most of the replies have assumed Philadelphia, Baltimore or Boston would have naturally developed much larger were there no New York, and others simply pushed for LA or Chicago as they've become large metropolises in their own right, but since this premise is by nature counter-factual, I think we're mistaken to just look at numbers, and are overlooking history and some of the reasons New York developed so much quicker and more successfully than its neighbors. I'm not convinced Boston, Philadelphia or Baltimore would simply have picked up the slack to become greater than they are. I could argue they would be less.
First, we cannot overlook that NYC was unmistakably Dutch - in possession for nearly 60 years, and in character long afterward. This I think important. For one, it focused development on a single city and destination port from the mother country for a lengthy period of time. The English had dozens of ports competing for emigrating attention from Britain and the West Indies. Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, yes, but Newport, and Charles Town were among the five largest cities of the American colonies by 1775 (Baltimore was in the top 10). Plymouth, Salem, New Haven, Wilmington, Portsmouth, Providence and smaller cities were the port of call for dozens of ships from abroad each year. In New Netherlands, all ships made for New York (New Amsterdam). Even the French in New France were not so monolithic in their development of Quebec City. Port Royal and Louisbourg were much closer to New Rochelle, France, and Plaisance and Tadoussac were stops en route to Quebec. In short, New York was THE port.
The Dutch character is important. Plymouth and Boston were religious colonies, the half dozen colonies throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire were escaping Puritan oppression, but not terribly open themselves. I'm well aware of Philadelphia's Quaker roots and Maryland's Catholicism, as well as Peter Stuyvesant's disdain for Quakers in New York - but by and large New York was more multicultural and religiously tolerant than other colonies - and the Remonstrance of 1649 gave New York equal rights as any city in Holland - something no British colony shared. Only Philadelphia had anything like that sense of multiculturalism in the 18th century, both communities hosting nearly two dozen church denominations. New England ports did not attract immigrants as New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had - their (New England cities) growth was mostly through birthrate. Finally it should be said that from the start New York was a port to conduct the vast fur trade, linked upriver to Albany. Philadelphia was not settled as a purely financial endeavor, like the Dutch of the 17th century (who were the economic and maritime power in Europe). I think that set it on a path toward accelerated growth in the mid 18th century that Philadelphia, while growing through German migration, just did not take advantage of. There is a reason NYC was the nation's first capitol and its largest city since 1790.
So in colonial America we'd have two competing British colonial regions - the religious New Englanders in the north and the plantation agriculturalists of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas. New Sweden would not have fallen to the Dutch in the Second Northern War, because there would be no NYC to establish a New Netherlands and no strong Dutch colony at New York for Peter Stuyvesant to sail from. Perhaps no Dutch colony at all if the prospect for an immense fur trade from New York did not exist. Could this colony likely have grown to include much of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania? Would Philadelphia even have developed as anything more than a backwater suburb with the Swede's capitol further down the Delaware at Kristina (Wilmington, DE)? It's likely that William Penn's charter for a colony in the Americas would have been elsewhere, further south in the Carolinas perhaps, though not at a great port location of a defeated advisory. While the Carolinas saw immigration of Germans in the 1700s, it was rather modest. Would Penn's colony there have fared any better, or have been a flash in the pan like the Moravian colonies of North Carolina that came and went with a wimper?
Without New York, French influence would have sure extended further into Upstate New York (missionaries and traders visited Syracuse, the Mohawk River, Niagara and the Finger Lakes) and probably Pennsylvania. Somewhere around the border of New England, New France and New Sweden there surely would have been conflict. I imagine like the Atlantic provinces, any French attempts to settle between New England and Virginia/Maryland would have met with a British attempted takeover, but it is interesting to think what a French and Iroquois New York/Pennsylvania/New Jersey may have looked like, and how it would have isolated expansion from western New England and pushed the frontier much further south. Would New Sweden have lasted much longer than it had? Perhaps, immigration was just starting to pick up when the Dutch captured the colony. But Sweden would have had to avoid conflict with the British and French long enough to establish a greater colony, and while both mediated on Sweden's behalf at the conclusion of the Second Northern War in Europe, the British certainly would have had an eye on the Swedish colony in America were it dividing their coastal colonies, the French probably in supporting it as a buffer between the two largest colonial holdings.
It's harder to envision further into the 19th century without New York. I'm strongly inclined to say there would be no Erie Canal. Without the canal, do Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit or Milwaukee come to be metropolises and urban centers? Is there a canal to link the Eastern seaboard with the interior before the coming of rail at all? Or does New Orleans take a more prominent role as the link to the interior of the continent until rail restores trade to points east? Perhaps the great eastern canal simply cuts across the isthmus of southern-most Ontario, linking Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and thus Montreal or Quebec become the hub of the trans-Atlantic trade.
Do we place the capitol at Washington, D.C. in the absence of such a large city at New York? The placement of D.C. was largely symbolic as a balance between North and South. Geographically, D.C. is still rather central, but population-wise, no New York would be a clear shift toward Virginia as the population center. Perhaps Washington is developed further south, nearer to Hampton Roads?
Without New York, which city took up the mantle as the center of commerce and manufacture in the Northeast? Does Boston become the immigrant destination that it would become with the Irish famine to become such a center? Would Philadelphia or Baltimore become great centers of industry and capital? And if not, isn't the balance of power between the slavery-driven economies of the South and the manufacture-driven economies of the North upset? Does the US take a more agrarian outlook in the signing of the Constitution, and are northern states quite so willing to fight for the sake of Union in 1861? In the Revolution and the War of 1812, we probably wouldn't have a sizable population in Upstate New York (whose development depended on trade with the City) to support large militias, and victories at Oriskany, Plattsburgh, Saratoga and Ticonderoga would be less certain, the war effort totally dependent upon New England. I could imagine the British Expeditionary Force would have made for Boston again, rather than making a base at New York, and the outcome of the War of Independence would have been different.
I'll wrap this up, just wanted to put on the historical hat, especially where counter-factual history is involved. Everyone is so quick to point out Chicago or L.A., but take NYC out of the picture and the country looks a lot different than it does today. For all we know, New Orleans would have developed as the premier port and nation's first city, there would be no Philly, Washington a tidewater rather than a backwater early on, and Boston captured early on in the Revolution, squashing the whole American experiment to begin with. Because, you know, everyone needed more reasons to love New York ;-)
Actually a pretty well thought out reponse. Need to process this more.
The one big if is on Cristiana (Wilmington DE) as if this did not take the early NY aspects you describe Philly may have very well been where it is.
Hmmm thanks for the thoughts though as it is a very interesting perspective
To the greater end, would there even have been an America we know today. Would NOLA have been some spanish incarnation, would NE be part of Cananda or still more similar to a Britsh entity, just more general food for thought
One other aspect on NOLA is that pre AC would it have been able to scale, to that end would Hampton Roads be larger etc.
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