Yes, Cairo Illinois (or a nearby town) seems like an obvious location for a mega-city. It seems quite bizarre with hindsight that no major city grew in the confluence of two of the most important rivers in North America.
Perhaps St. Louis (at the confluence of Mississippi and Missouri rivers) stole its thunder?
Probably! Being about equidistant from St Louis and Memphis could have had a profound impact. During this time that Cairo was getting settled was also when Chicago was growing incredibly fast so I imagine Illinois' population and economy was concentrating in that area as well.
Yes, Chicago was a veritable black hole of urban growth during the 19th Century. I think Providence RI suffered a similar fate, as it is between Boston and NYC.
Ontario, OR. It's got plenty of land, the Snake River, no sales tax, and it's near Boise.
Also, the state of Mississippi. It's at the mouth of the most important river in the US, and it's on the gulf coast. It's neighbors (LA and AL) have about double the population. Plus it's a cheap alternative to Florida for retirement.
Ontario Oregon is a really good one I hadn't thought about! And it's basically in my backyard! I always thought that the Snake River should have more people on it overall than it does.
Why are there not more cities and towns in our state's mountain and forest areas; the State of Washington? Is it strictly the hand of the government that decided to preserve the forest under the guise of a National Forest Preserve? For what?
People are ultimately more important than the earth's resources; but in our state, we have a certain practical atheist mindset of pagan rootedness - to worship creation instead of our Creator.
It seems to me Europe did a pretty good job of managing sprawl, and keeping people located in designated town districts, leaving farmland set aside, and preserving open areas of fields and forests.
But why not allow master planned towns and cities in designated places within the National Forest Preserves in Washington? Is it possibly a fresh pure water source issue? Not likely, in that, our city of Everett receives its water from the mountain area via a pipeline from a large lake preserve.
I think about this on a micro scale all the time. The centers of roundabouts, the spaces enclosed by on-ramps and exchanges, railway sidings, bits of farmland kept back from cultivation by water courses all seem like opportunities for someone. Discovery of JG Ballard's novel _Concrete Island_ was a very disturbing discovery for me. I thought I was the only one. But, typically, all our secrets are the same. .
Being from ND, I'm graced with wondering why the geographical center of North American - Rugby, ND, does not have at least a somewhat larger population. Centralized areas seem to be the places where population is most dense, which is why we have downtowns in cities. Centralized areas create accessibility for anyone, and where better to put a centralized area than in the very center of something. This way, everyone from the peripheries have to travel the same distance, rather than one side having to travel all the way to the other side in order to access a centralized area. I guess sometimes temperature rules all, and also maybe having too many ponds.
Besides this, and besides Cairo, Illinois, a place like Astoria, Oregon, might qualify. If Astoria (and not Portland or Seattle) had become the main Pacific NW city, the entire history of the Pacific NW (as well as British Columbia, Canada) might be different.
Moreover, if somehow Canada (or at least west of Quebec) were a part of the United States, Toronto might have evolved more along the lines of such major Great Lakes industrial cities as Cleveland or Detroit than like the Toronto of our timeline. Montreal (where I live, by the way) would be bigger - however slightly - than Toronto still to this day, in all probability.
Finally, the Falklands - as subpolar and semi-barren as they are - could easily accommodate 10 times as many people as there actually are. While only some 30,000 people spread out over an area the size of Connecticut is a very low population density, the 3,000+ people that there actually are in the Falklands is a really really low population density for a place that isn't Greenland or Antarctica or anything like that.
I went to university across the river in Missouri back in the 1970s and saw Cairo once or twice in our driving around. That part of Illinois is incredibly flat - at one point I realized that I was looking down from my seat in the car to find the horizon. In addition to the town's sad racial history - which was still casting a shadow over it when I knew it - it really isn't set up to be a big river port - I think the next big ports in each direction are Paducah, Ky on the Ohio and Cape Girardeau, Missouri - both of which have good sized landing areas backed by a small cliff. It's hard to build up the infrastructure of even a river port when the river keeps coming up into it as it does even in those two towns though not as often as it would at Cairo. Also, given its location all the way down in the southern most tip of Illinois surrounded only by farmland - there isn't a need for a river port, not enough people - while Cape Girardeau and Paducah both serve and extensive area of farms, small manufacturing, and retail for tens of thousands of people and are linked to many more by highways and railroads.
Yes, Cairo Illinois (or a nearby town) seems like an obvious location for a mega-city. It seems quite bizarre with hindsight that no major city grew in the confluence of two of the most important rivers in North America.
Perhaps St. Louis (at the confluence of Mississippi and Missouri rivers) stole its thunder?
Probably! Being about equidistant from St Louis and Memphis could have had a profound impact. During this time that Cairo was getting settled was also when Chicago was growing incredibly fast so I imagine Illinois' population and economy was concentrating in that area as well.
Yes, Chicago was a veritable black hole of urban growth during the 19th Century. I think Providence RI suffered a similar fate, as it is between Boston and NYC.
Ontario, OR. It's got plenty of land, the Snake River, no sales tax, and it's near Boise.
Also, the state of Mississippi. It's at the mouth of the most important river in the US, and it's on the gulf coast. It's neighbors (LA and AL) have about double the population. Plus it's a cheap alternative to Florida for retirement.
Ontario Oregon is a really good one I hadn't thought about! And it's basically in my backyard! I always thought that the Snake River should have more people on it overall than it does.
Why are there not more cities and towns in our state's mountain and forest areas; the State of Washington? Is it strictly the hand of the government that decided to preserve the forest under the guise of a National Forest Preserve? For what?
People are ultimately more important than the earth's resources; but in our state, we have a certain practical atheist mindset of pagan rootedness - to worship creation instead of our Creator.
It seems to me Europe did a pretty good job of managing sprawl, and keeping people located in designated town districts, leaving farmland set aside, and preserving open areas of fields and forests.
But why not allow master planned towns and cities in designated places within the National Forest Preserves in Washington? Is it possibly a fresh pure water source issue? Not likely, in that, our city of Everett receives its water from the mountain area via a pipeline from a large lake preserve.
I think about this on a micro scale all the time. The centers of roundabouts, the spaces enclosed by on-ramps and exchanges, railway sidings, bits of farmland kept back from cultivation by water courses all seem like opportunities for someone. Discovery of JG Ballard's novel _Concrete Island_ was a very disturbing discovery for me. I thought I was the only one. But, typically, all our secrets are the same. .
Being from ND, I'm graced with wondering why the geographical center of North American - Rugby, ND, does not have at least a somewhat larger population. Centralized areas seem to be the places where population is most dense, which is why we have downtowns in cities. Centralized areas create accessibility for anyone, and where better to put a centralized area than in the very center of something. This way, everyone from the peripheries have to travel the same distance, rather than one side having to travel all the way to the other side in order to access a centralized area. I guess sometimes temperature rules all, and also maybe having too many ponds.
Uruguay
The following alternate history thread has a whole discussion of this sort of topic: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/american-cities-that-could-have-been-more-prominent.152074/
Besides this, and besides Cairo, Illinois, a place like Astoria, Oregon, might qualify. If Astoria (and not Portland or Seattle) had become the main Pacific NW city, the entire history of the Pacific NW (as well as British Columbia, Canada) might be different.
Moreover, if somehow Canada (or at least west of Quebec) were a part of the United States, Toronto might have evolved more along the lines of such major Great Lakes industrial cities as Cleveland or Detroit than like the Toronto of our timeline. Montreal (where I live, by the way) would be bigger - however slightly - than Toronto still to this day, in all probability.
Finally, the Falklands - as subpolar and semi-barren as they are - could easily accommodate 10 times as many people as there actually are. While only some 30,000 people spread out over an area the size of Connecticut is a very low population density, the 3,000+ people that there actually are in the Falklands is a really really low population density for a place that isn't Greenland or Antarctica or anything like that.
Nice
Epic
I went to university across the river in Missouri back in the 1970s and saw Cairo once or twice in our driving around. That part of Illinois is incredibly flat - at one point I realized that I was looking down from my seat in the car to find the horizon. In addition to the town's sad racial history - which was still casting a shadow over it when I knew it - it really isn't set up to be a big river port - I think the next big ports in each direction are Paducah, Ky on the Ohio and Cape Girardeau, Missouri - both of which have good sized landing areas backed by a small cliff. It's hard to build up the infrastructure of even a river port when the river keeps coming up into it as it does even in those two towns though not as often as it would at Cairo. Also, given its location all the way down in the southern most tip of Illinois surrounded only by farmland - there isn't a need for a river port, not enough people - while Cape Girardeau and Paducah both serve and extensive area of farms, small manufacturing, and retail for tens of thousands of people and are linked to many more by highways and railroads.