What if Detroit, Chicago (and other Northern cities) never fell?

[jd3189]

This just popped into my head today. These topics are interesting and I can’t say no to them.

But just thinking, most of the top 10 American cities in the 1950s were Northern cities that were at their peak. Detroit had 1.8 million, Chicago had 3 million. I’m sure Cleveland, Boston, Philly, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and other cities had more then than they do now. Even DC was close to a million at 800,000-ish back then.


Fast forward now, it seems that only NYC has surpassed its peak then. Most of the aforementioned cities are now past that era. I think Minneapolis and a few others are exceptions?

But, what if those cities had continued to grow or just only experienced a small transient decline like NYC in the 70s and kept chugging along? What if Detroit adapted to the changes in the auto industry and the racism that led to its decline? What if Chicago still maintained its complete image as the Second city and still kept an edge over LA (or at least stayed close behind it if the latter still proved to be high growth at the time)?

Two different scenarios could be considered.

-Much of the population in those cities gradually moved south to the Sunbelt, so one scenario could be that this could happen at the expense of those current high growth areas.

-Another scenario could be that the Sunbelt could still grow to its current scale today via migration from the Northern cities, but immigration during the late 20th century could have been large enough to maintain and supersede the urban population peaks of the 50s.



Either way, I believe this would have been significant. Most of the urban renewal projects may have been avoided, saving countless pre-war neighborhoods. We as a country probably would have been more aware of Canada then we are now, with more Americans living next to the border in this alternate reality. We would probably have a large mass of cities that could compete with the excellence that is the European continent. Who the hell knows where we would be.


So, what do y’all think would have happened if this was our reality?