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How different would the West Coast be? Currently, the West lacks the depth of the East due to lack of big cities.
Lets imagine Chicago being where Portland, OR and Portland, OR being where Chicago is. How would the West Coast & Mid West be different had this been the case? Would the Northwest be different with Seattle & Chicago being the main cities? . Would LA still be the primary city of the West Coast? Or would it be Chicago or SF or Seattle? . .
I feel that the West Coast would be much more populated & the Midwest would be mostly empty. Also, the West Coast would be able to compete with the East Coast. Also, the Midwest would be very different. It would be less populated and probably be undesirable place to live.
Seattle-Chicago-SF-LA-SD would be able to compete with Boston-NY-Philly-DC-Miami. Please discuss.
Yeah probably the West Coast would be more populated and the Midwest would be less.
The country only did grow in one specific way, so it's hard to say how it would look different if one city had been bigger or smaller --- but in general it seems like big cities are in more populated, not less populated regions. The regional population centers in WA and OR are mostly fairly close to Seattle and Portland, not in eastern WA/OR; most of the prominent Midwestern cities are closer to Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland etc. rather than in the Dakotas or Nebraska. In other words, growth in a specific area encourages more growth more than it scares people off, generally speaking.
But in order to even hypothesize how things would be different, you have to take into account what led to the success of a specific city/region.
Why is it assumed that some other Midwestern city wouldn't have taken Chicago's place as a large regional hub city? In 19th Century America, the Midwest was the ideal place for industrial growth because it had the natural resources that were essential for it, a generally favorable climate, endless expanses of fertile land, as well as an enormous interior river system that was basically the only way to travel before railroads took off.
How would one plausibly put Chicago where Portland is and expect it could sustain the same kind of growth in the same time period? The Pacific Northwest is, in general, very far removed from the rest of the country and was a relatively hard place to get to before modern transportation. Small areas are good for agriculture, but most of the land is either mountainous or too arid.
Up until the mid-20th Century, geography built cities. A Portland placed where Chicago is would have become another Chicago, and vice-versa.
Placing modern day Chicago in Portland's place would obviously change the power dynamics on the West Coast, but the thing is that Chicago wouldn't have become Chicago if you put it where Portland is. It became Chicago due to its importance as a Midwestern rail hub.
Remove Chicago from its historical place, and St. Louis would have likely become said rail hub. It had been battling Chicago for years for dominance, but threw its lot in with the riverboat industry to the detriment of the railroads. This handed an easy win to Chicago that went all in on rail.
Placing modern day Chicago in Portland's place would obviously change the power dynamics on the West Coast, but the thing is that Chicago wouldn't have become Chicago if you put it where Portland is. It became Chicago due to its importance as a Midwestern rail hub.
Remove Chicago from its historical place, and St. Louis would have likely become said rail hub. It had been battling Chicago for years for dominance, but threw its lot in with the riverboat industry to the detriment of the railroads. This handed an easy win to Chicago that went all in on rail.
Interesting perspective. I wonder if Toledo, Ohio may have also benefited regionally.
Placing modern day Chicago in Portland's place would obviously change the power dynamics on the West Coast, but the thing is that Chicago wouldn't have become Chicago if you put it where Portland is. It became Chicago due to its importance as a Midwestern rail hub.
Remove Chicago from its historical place, and St. Louis would have likely become said rail hub. It had been battling Chicago for years for dominance, but threw its lot in with the riverboat industry to the detriment of the railroads. This handed an easy win to Chicago that went all in on rail.
Yep, Chicago grew up as a transportation center --rail, ship, and now air. And it became a center because it was near to farmland, livestock, iron ore, and a central transfer to points east west, and south. And of course it invented skyscrapers, which back in the day (before modern construction) would have been a huge risk in Portland.
Leave Portland, Chicagoland where Eureka, CA now sits would be *everything*.
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