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Let's pretend DC gets nuked or just something terrible happens to it. Which of these five cities would you pick to be the new capital?
-Denver - A city truly in the center of the country, very safe from outside attacks and natural disasters.
-Chicago - Solidifying the city as the third largest, ensuring Houston doesn't surpass, while the government buildings go on the southside to revitalize it and we get a blend of a capital city and large stereotypical city with big buildings, and fairly safe in regards to geographic location.
-Oklahoma City - A city so unknown to the international community with so much potential if expanded there.
-Detroit - SO much space to expand in, help revitalize a decaying city, and making the city great once again with a new strong economy.
-St. Louis - More central and safely located city. Help revitalize the city's poor areas. Good culture location too. Midwest, meets south, east meets west (historically) and with one of the most famous waterways cutting next to the city.
Some criteria:
-Consider geographic location in relation to safety from international attacks
-If the city has enough room to accommodate the memorials and all the government buildings, and Smithsonian museums
-The city's economic might
-How international the city is
Distance from national borders isn't necessarily the first criteria for defense. Proximity to a lot of military resources and transportation infrastructure would be another.
Also, is this an emergency back-up capital or a permanent one? Those might be two different cities.
Chicago comes to mind. It's huge with tons of infrastructure, and still has a lot of land where a capital campus and offshoots could rise. It wouldn't be overly dominated.
Denver seems great if it's about distance Russian propeller bombers have to fly. But it's a bit too remote. Even the airport would be a disadvantage in that planes can't be fully-loaded and get off the ground, which is one reason for its very low overseas airline presence.
Distance from national borders isn't necessarily the first criteria for defense. Proximity to a lot of military resources and transportation infrastructure would be another.
If those are the criteria, then Kansas City would be a logical choice.
Military resources already within one or two hour of Kansas City: 1.) Whiteman Air Force Base, where they keep the entire fleet of Stealth bombers. 2.) Fort Leavenworth Army Base, which includes the Command and General Staff College. It's second only to West Point for training military officers. Famous graduates include Colin Powell and David Petraeus. 3.) Offutt Air Force base outside of Omaha, Nebraska. This AF base already has the "secret underground bunker" where the president will go in case of a nuclear attack. George Bush was rushed there on 9-11.
Transportation infrastructure: Over the past 150 years Kansas City has been a transportation hub. Howard Hughes chose it as the hub for Trans World Airlines because the city sits almost in the dead center of the country. TWA still lives on today as "American Airlines." KC has also been a railroad hub because its centrality.
Assuming that a new jurisdiction along the lines of D. C. were part of the package, I would pick Detroit, because it has a well-developed, but under-utilized infrastructure, and precisely because, since it has been allowed to deteriorate into an economic basket case, a new, preferably-neutral power structure could root out and replace the former clique of gangsters and influence-peddlers.
And because its rise and fall can be traced to the inherent mobility of the auto industry, which involves not so much "manufacturing" as the assembly of component parts, it has never developed the "stable" population and older upper crust that characterizes most "settled" cities. (In that respect, it's already somewhat like Washington). Chicago could use a similar purging, but I can guarantee you that the well-entrenched heirs of Daley would fight it to the last ditch.
If the field were wide-open, I'd add Columbus, OH, Indianapolis,and Kansas City to the list of candidates.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 08-24-2016 at 09:03 AM..
Remember any potential long term capital would have to be in a state willing to give up said city. So I can see somewhere like Detroit but can't see Chicago at all.
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