If Germany wins WWI, they could experience a huge amount of Central and Eastern European immigration sooner or later, no?
Cities that could've been or could have been even greater
- Thread starter History Learner
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If Germany wins WWI, they could experience a huge amount of Central and Eastern European immigration sooner or later, no?
Mass conversions to Catholicism?
Some other possible candidates for becoming much larger:
Kiev, Ukraine: Could have had, say, 5-6 million people today rather than only 3 million without the extreme demographic devastation that Ukraine suffered during the 20th century.
Odessa, Ukraine: Instead of having just one million people, Odessa could have 4-5 million people today without the extreme demographic devastation that the former Soviet space has suffered during the 20th century, especially if it would have also completely avoided Communism and the Russian Civil War. In such a scenario, it's entirely possible that Odessa would have become and/or remained Russia's major Black Sea port up to the present-day.
Kiev, Ukraine: Could have had, say, 5-6 million people today rather than only 3 million without the extreme demographic devastation that Ukraine suffered during the 20th century.
Odessa, Ukraine: Instead of having just one million people, Odessa could have 4-5 million people today without the extreme demographic devastation that the former Soviet space has suffered during the 20th century, especially if it would have also completely avoided Communism and the Russian Civil War. In such a scenario, it's entirely possible that Odessa would have become and/or remained Russia's major Black Sea port up to the present-day.
I have more, if you all are still interested...
El Paso, Texas - I have no idea if this is accurate, but to quote from Wikipedia:
If is true, and combined with the Southern Trans-Continental Railway PoD mentioned earlier, then you could easily see El Paso as one of the Top Three cities in Texas thanks to being a major transportation center. Goods could come up via ship along the Rio Grande and from there take the railway to California or vice versa.
New York City, New York - Yes, NYC like Chicago was already great but it could've been even grander had the proposal to extend it been successful:
NYC could have also been even grander had the mass European immigration wave into the US continued for a longer time period, for instance, due to no World War I at all.
TheRomanSlayer
Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
Sosnovy Bor and Ust-Luga would have been an excellent alternative Baltic port for Russia in the absence of St. Petersburg. Ivangorod sits on the Narva River, but I’m not sure how well defended is the port when Russia is sharing a border with what is now Estonia.
If Russia permanently keeps Estonia, then border security for Ivangorod should be a non-issue.
TheRomanSlayer
Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
That would require a Muscovite victory in the Livonian War, or preventing the Russification policy from being implemented in the lands of what is now Estonia and Latvia.
Russia can keep Estonia as a part of a federation if it avoids the Bolshevik coup in 1917, no?
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
Not the same as AH surviving. In Yugoslavia it would be the main port of the federal republic Slovenia, so Koper would not develop into commercial port and it would probably replace Maribor as the main rival to Ljubljana, but that would still be nothing compared to it's importance it held before WWI, as the main port of Austrian part of AH.
Buba
A total creep
No.
Sankt Peterburg is the outlet for trade from Volga basin through canals linking Lake Onega or River Volkhov basins with it.
Narva is outlet solely for Lake Peipus basin.
Riga could had been much larger had somebody made the Dvina navigable and linked it with the upper Dnepr.
49ersfootball
Well-known member
I 100% point all of the blame on Coleman Young, who ran a proud city into a SHIT HOLE!
Buba
A total creep
Sorry for derail, but my readings spurred by a "Detroit ISOT to circa 1960" thread led me to believe that the downhill slide began in the 1950s, when Republicans wrecked various neighbourhoods for highspeed road construction.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
His twenty(!!!) years in uncontested power certainly made things much, much worse than they had to be. The downward trend started much earlier, though, and even if the best possible person had been in charge of the city, it still wouldn't have reversed that trend.
Detroit was screwed the moment US industry began to fall victim to ever-increasing globalisation, which is basically an exponentially escalating trend that covers the whole second half of the 20th century (and continues into the 21st, up to the present day).
The only way Detroit -- and, in fact, the whole rust belt -- could have been saved is via a real swerve to America First protectionism on the national level. (The sooner it occurs, the less drastic it has to be.)
Whether this is a good move in absolute terms may be debated, but it's the sure-fire way to preserve domestic industry; to keep the foundry blazing.
49ersfootball
Well-known member
Plus the Anglo Flight to the Suburbs didn't help.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Sure, though I think that's -- to a serious degree, at least -- a consequence of the larger trend. Industry, manufacturing, honest blue collar work as a whole... when they die out in a country, the cities die, too. Financial districts thrive, but those are near-exclusively populated by commuters. The cities die, so things crumble, crime soars, and the middle class flees for greener pastures.
Incidentally, the "death of the American city" was then made worse because enthousiastic left-wingers got into power, and their utopian visions of central planning made everything much worse. They gutted the cities and built Stalinist monstrosities. But why did they get into power? Major reason: the working class swerved left, because the right embraced globalism and thus betrayed them!
I can imagine a scenario where the Republicans go America First, in which case they'll always get the lion's share of the blue collar vote. The American city doesn't die, so there's much less suburbia, and more of the middle class stays in the cities -- intermidled with the working class. There's less of a divide. Less of a racial abyss, too. The black population votes Republican, too, in this scenario. No reason to vote for left-wing activists when you have a secure job.
It sounds pretty close to ideal. Left-wing radicalism is prevented from taking hold, American jobs are safe, cities are much better off, there's a large degree of racial harmony, there's much less of a divide between working class and middle class...
The draw-back, of course, is that the country is less affluent in absolute terms. Since the OTL globalist economy sacrifices ordinary people for the interests of billionaires, however, most ATL Americans will actually feel (and may well be) better off. The main drawback is that all imported goods will be much more expensive, and the overall diversity/availability of foreign goods will be substantially lower. (That's the obvious price of keeping "made in America" a prominent label.) Overall, prices of consumer goods will be higher in absolute terms than in OTL, too. (Again, an unavoidable effect of protectionist policies.) On the other hand, without OTL's globalist economy, expect inflation to be much reduced, and purchasing power will be up compared to OTL. So that may even out (or something close to it, anyway).
For the libertarian-minded Republicans (and for anyone committed to small government on principle), the sour apple here is that the ATL Republican Party will be considerably less opposed to certain social programmes (which will carry less of a stigma in right-wing circles if the far left has been effectively euthanised already).
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History Learner
Well-known member
Industrial employment in raw numbers didn't peak until 1978, and thereafter was relatively stable until the late 1990s/early 2000s. Most of the Rustbelt cities can be explained by White Flight; Detroit in particular is a good example when you look at the decline of the city proper stacked against the growth of the suburbs.
Industrial employment in Detroit or in the US in general?
History Learner
Well-known member
General, never looked at it on the sub-national level but I would not be surprised if it was steady if you expanded your look into wider metropolitan area.
FWIW, not sure about local-level employment data but I believe that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has state-level unemployment data from either the 1970s or 1980s.
History Learner
Well-known member
Might be something I'll dig into one day, thanks for letting me know those datasets existed.