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Old 01-17-2019, 10:00 AM
 
482 posts, read 346,279 times
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I'll pick a place most people have never heard of although many have driven past or sat on a train passing through:

Havre de Grace, Maryland

In 1789 a vote was held to determine where the US capitol would be. The site that became Washington, DC received 27 votes. Havre de Grace (named by General Lafayette in 1782- it was previously Susquehanna Flats) got 27 votes. The Speaker (from PA) cast the deciding vote for the more Southerly location.

Havre de Grace seemingly has it all location wise. It lies in the upper Chesapeake Bay where the Susquehanna river meets it. It isn't that prone to flooding as there is no delta. It is directly between Baltimore (40 miles) and Philadelphia (55 miles). The river is not wide there and is easily bridged. Therefore it has always been on the main route on the East Coast for both road and later rail. Additionally in 1829 the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal made ship transport to the Delaware River and Atlantic also possible through that route.

Today I-95 runs past as does the Amtrak NE Corridor. Havre de Grace has about 13,000 people today. Given all of its assets it should have millions of inhabitants. Given it's central location in the NE corridor it will undoubtedly grow but I imagine it will be just residential sprawl.
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Old 01-17-2019, 02:41 PM
 
Location: Chicago
6,359 posts, read 8,758,560 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11 View Post
New York surpassed Philly in population before the Erie Canal was built and even when it was smaller soon after the Revolutionary War, it had a much greater volume of imports and exports.

Baltimore is slipping in rank, and is not likely to catch up to NY, Philly, Bos, or DC. Its like a rust belt city that ended up on the I-95 corridor.
The opening of the Erie Canal is often given as the most important event in US history. It couldn’t have achivd its status in the colonial era as the 13 colonies extended only to the base of the Appalachians. It was the national era of he early 19th century that allow d New York to become the end point of the burgeoning western trade. In the colonial era it was Philadelphia and Boston that help ascendancy. Two cities started by England took the lead.

New York was Dutch before going johnny come lately and becoming British. New York was important, of course by having the best harbor in the colonies. It was also very impotant in its mercantile nature. New York has alwayys about making a buck.

It was the Erie Canal, more than anything else that moved New York out of the pack and led to its A no. One ,top of the heap status
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Old 01-17-2019, 02:46 PM
 
4,134 posts, read 2,769,326 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by btownboss4 View Post
I think that one of the things that people keep saying is a lot of these old south cities didn't boom, Birmingham, Memphis, Richmond etc. that hit a wall, much like their Northern counterparts. But they hit a wall because they had an urban core. Meanwhile cities that didn't really exist before WWII like Charlotte, Nashville, Raleigh, Miami, were able to mold themselves into exactly what people wanted at the time because they were a blank slate.

Save for a few cities like Houston and Atlanta that had geographic reasons that they basically needed to be in that exact location.
I’m unsure I’m following. Are you referencing suburbs or something else?
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Old 01-17-2019, 03:31 PM
 
Location: OC
12,734 posts, read 9,370,423 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Lennox 70 View Post
Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Detroit have truly been hobbled by crime and Democrat corruption and mismanagement. I think Chicago was once a great city that's in decline in the past decade (ironically about the time when Obama began his community organizing there). If the chaos isn't brought under control, Chicago risks developing a Third World reputation. 45 shot in one weekend is something you expect in Juarez not in an American city. In particular Baltimore and Philly have a good location in between DC and New York but both are impoverished, crime ridden cities.

Baltimore is the largest US city without a single Fortune 500 company headquartered there.

Seattle is also being restrained by its liberal politics particularly its business-unfriendly laws....it had a lot going for it but things like the $15 minimum wage, the city council's obsession with raising taxes on businesses, the politically correcteness, I believe is hurting Seattle and will continue to hurt it.

Its debatable whether Juneau, Alaska would see more growth/expansion if it was given road access to the rest of North America. Its probably the largest city in the U.S. outside of Hawaii that's only reached by air and sea.

Lastly its a shame that the New Orleans area hasn't seen the kind of Sunbelt growth prevalent in other Southern metros. Hurricane Katrina obviously devastated the area but even before then NO wasn't as booming as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Charlotte, etc. Because of the bayous outside the city most of the new growth is all the way across Lake Pontchartrain on the Northshore.
That's funny. Most of the tech world consider Seattle and Chicago rock star cities with amazing futures. Who knew they were Detroit.
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Old 01-17-2019, 03:40 PM
 
4,541 posts, read 2,753,037 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iconographer View Post
I'm hard-pressed to identify another 'BosWash' situation globally where you have a chain of major metros chained together this way. The closest I can think of is Tokyo/Kawasaki/Yokohama/Nagoya/Osaka/Kyoto.
Pearl River Delta in China.

Hong Kong - Macau - Shenzhen - Guangzhou. 120 million residents, $1.2 trillion GDP.
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Old 01-17-2019, 04:41 PM
 
13,942 posts, read 14,829,606 times
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Originally Posted by Heel82 View Post
I’m unsure I’m following. Are you referencing suburbs or something else?
Richmond was an urban core of ~300,000 in 1950 much like Rochester, NY or Hartford CT.
Nashville was a town of 40,000. Richmond faces the challenges of a small metro in the 1950-1980 time frame while Raleigh did not.

Raleigh could shape the city around what people in 1975 wanted while the old South urban cores like New Orleans or Memphis went through similar paths to Rust Belt cities.
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Old 01-17-2019, 06:13 PM
 
Location: SoCal
3,877 posts, read 3,857,326 times
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Originally Posted by Drewjdeg View Post
Pearl River Delta in China.

Hong Kong - Macau - Shenzhen - Guangzhou. 120 million residents, $1.2 trillion GDP.
That might be impressive for China, but by US standards that's abyssmal LA CSA economy with 6 times the population.
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Old 01-17-2019, 06:21 PM
 
Location: St Simons Island, GA
23,314 posts, read 43,771,460 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sean1the1 View Post
That might be impressive for China, but by US standards that's abyssmal LA CSA economy with 6 times the population.
At any rate, that is irrelevant to our particular conversation, which was concerning world megalopolises comparable to the BosWash Corridor.
His example was a valid one.
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Old 01-17-2019, 09:01 PM
 
4,134 posts, read 2,769,326 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by btownboss4 View Post
Richmond was an urban core of ~300,000 in 1950 much like Rochester, NY or Hartford CT.
Nashville was a town of 40,000. Richmond faces the challenges of a small metro in the 1950-1980 time frame while Raleigh did not.

Raleigh could shape the city around what people in 1975 wanted while the old South urban cores like New Orleans or Memphis went through similar paths to Rust Belt cities.
The only thing Raleigh did was find jobs. I saw someone mentioned that Birmingham steel tycoons liked controversy so they could maintain a grip on the city. Is that what we are talking about with Richmond?

It’s an interesting theory actually. Because cities had failed to develop an industry, they were more willing to take chances on diversification with up-and-coming industries. I’m unsure it’s correct, but I’m intrigued to explore what exactly went sideways in Richmond.
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Old 01-17-2019, 09:11 PM
 
13,942 posts, read 14,829,606 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Heel82 View Post
The only thing Raleigh did was find jobs. I saw someone mentioned that Birmingham steel tycoons liked controversy so they could maintain a grip on the city. Is that what we are talking about with Richmond?

It’s an interesting theory actually. Because cities had failed to develop an industry, they were more willing to take chances on diversification with up-and-coming industries. I’m unsure it’s correct, but I’m intrigued to explore what exactly went sideways in Richmond.
Raleigh didn’t have the urban issues that legacy cities like the historically large Southern cities like Louisville or Richmond. Charlotte, Nashville are in the same boat.
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