Quote:
Originally Posted by bossabreezes
Still kind of puzzled how this urbanity developed a couple centuries ago on that side of the US, since there is literally nothing else similar on the West Coast. Seattle might come in as much further second runner up.
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Because San Francisco was the only sizable city in the Western U.S. prior to 1900.
Population of western cities circa 1900:
San Francisco: 342,782
Denver: 133,859
Los Angeles: 102,479
Portland: 90,426
Seattle: 80,671
Oakland: 66,960
Salt Lake City: 53,531
That was it...nothing else over 50,000. In the case of the non-SF cities on the list, the "urban core" at the time was so small that construction of modern CBDs killed most of the old urban neighborhoods except for some tiny little patches.
The South was fairly similar. with New Orleans (287,104) so much larger than the next biggest city (Memphis - 102,320)