Why are many major cities at or near an extreme location in each state?
 

New York City is at the southernmost point of New York State. Chicago is in Northern Illinois. Detroit is in Southern Michigan. Boston is located in Eastern Massachusetts. LA and Miami are at the southernmost parts of their states as well and etc.

I know geographical features had something to do with many of these, but I’m curious to hear if there are other reasons for this being so.

Older states in the east often had state boundaries determined by rivers and other bodies of water, and cities really liked being near navigable water in the olden days, so the big cities were often found at the edges of the states. Out west, these issue weren't at play as much, so you ended up with cities like Denver and Phoenix smack dab in the middle of a relatively arbitrary rectangle.

Many political boundaries exist because of politics, but that's not the only reason, of course geography plays a role as well.

But why do we have/need a Rhode Island/Delaware today when we have a California/Texas?

Rhode Island and Delaware were sovereign entities prior to the formation of the US with pre-established boundaries drawn up during the colonial era. Modern Texas was what was left over after the Republic of Texas split from Mexico and joined the US. California was carved out of the Mexican Cession.

Phoenix was founded along the Salt River in a fertile valley, a location that was pre-historically occupied by native peoples (they disappeared in the 1400s or so if I remember right). It was founded before Arizona was a state and the final state lines were set.

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Isn't it obvious? Water is the reason for their existence, either for travel or as a drinking supply, or both.

Name the biggest city you can that is not its size because of water. Now that's a tough question.

Denver was founded at the confluence of two prairie rivers where gold was found. It grew as a city because of the gold mines in the nearby mountains and access to the railroads. When Colorado became a state in 1876 Denver just happened to be in a central location and as the largest city it made sense to be the state capitol.

It's common for cities to be on large bodies of water (lakes, oceans, big rivers). It is also common to use those natural boundaries as political boundaries.

Also political boundaries may reflect expansion over time. One side of a state may have been walled in by a more established neighbor, and the frontier border was more aspirational with less people living out that way.

The 13 colonies seem like a good example of this.

True, but that doesn’t explain fully why many of them are at an extreme location in their state.

For example, NYC would have easily been in a more central location within NYS had it combined with NJ with the Hudson not being a state boundary. Same could be said for Chicago if Illinois was able to gain more land from Wisconsin and Indiana. San Francisco seems to be the odd one out since it’s pretty centrally located in California.

And I’m curious about other countries that also have this characteristic. Many European major cities are far enough from the border between countries I assume (London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Berlin, etc).

In Chicago's case it is in Illinois because Illinois was concerned that the original proposal for the state boundaries would deprive it of a port on the great lakes. So the boundary was drawn to include just a sliver of the Lake Michigan shoreline including what would eventually become Chicago. At one point Wisconsin territory would have encompassed Chicago as well which would have transformed Wisconsin into something of a "big 5" state with 17+ million residents. Talk about alternate history.

That that same time Wisconsin territory was to include Upper Michigan as well, but that was broken off and added to Michigan because they were concerned about a lack of mineral resources. If things had remained the way they were proposed Wisconsin would be THE Midwestern juggernaut.


Chicago, Wisconsin:

https://www-dnainfo-com.cdn.ampproje...order-illinois

Bow to your overlord, Mega Wisconsin:

https://wpr-public.s3.amazonaws.com/...amp=1448913960

In all seriousness, this is illustrative of how these cities end up situated where they do in states.

https://www.kshs.org/publicat/khq/19..._1_ksmap-1.jpg kshs.org

here’s how kansas territory was when denver was founded (overlain state boundaries). if they had left kansas boundaries as such, denver would have been on the edge. the front range was a sort of “coast” in a way.

speaking of juggernaughts, heres missouri territory when st. louis had all of this to administer (slowly backhands mega-wisconsin against the ceiling as it strides into the room :P): http://tile.loc.gov/image-services/i.../0/default.jpg

New Mexico Territory [Arizona, Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Colorado]:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ry%2C_1852.png

Like I said, political boundaries exist because of politics and at times physical geographical features, like rivers.

Are there any examples of cities being founded specifically based on their centrality within a state that have since become major cities because of it? In and of itself it's not really a compelling reason for a city to succeed. Most cities also pre-date the modern iteration of their state anyway.

Tallahassee. Picked as Midway point between St. Augustine and Pensacola. There wasn't much in South Florida at the time.

both columbus and indianapolis were founded as state capitals specifically based on their centrality within their respective states, and both have since become major cities of their states.

illinois attempted the same thing with springfield, but the chicago juggernaut eventually proved to be far too powerful to overcome.

the northwest is based off the columbia river. also the oregon trail, people saw paintings of the river and oregon and out east things werent going well so people headed west. or something like that. now its been almost 200 years and oregon the nw is still pretty, theres a bunch of problems but the whole world is kinda having trouble. anyways heres a pic.

https://i.imgur.com/J5Q7sQf.jpg

Detroit's position to the Ohio border is incidental. Toledo's position relative to the Michigan/Ohio border is the more interesting story, and it was supposed to be part of Michigan. Michigan and Ohio went to "war" over control of Toledo. Michigan won...

The simple answer to why Detroit is directly on the U.S./Canadian border is because the Americans won the battles against the British that decided control of Fort Detroit, and Fort Detroit was located on the western side of the river.

Cities are founded near water.

Water creates borders.

Borders are, by definition, edges (i.e., extremes).

The Chicago Juggernauts should be an NFL expansion team

Yeah, that's another good point. All of the U.S. cities that grew from a pre-Revolutionary War settlement were probably situated in a way to help defend against being attacked. Many of the oldest cities were probably settled around forts.

Dallas

^ Atlanta too?

California has no big rivers. so by that logic Oregon and California are combined. I mean the border really doesn't exist, except you an tell by looking at the way the cities look. the whole west cost is mixed up.

I mean the rivers going west to east aren't going to divide anything because eat California is a desert like Nevada or se Oregon. I had a few beers and thought that was p important. even if California has made Oregon. technically it has.

California was part of the Mexican Cession, Oregon territory was ceded to the US by the British two years earlier in 1846

im talking new times. why do you think the whole west cost is legal for mj.

the west cast formed into one

Most state capitals were purposefully picked to be a somewhat geographically centrally located.

Of course, a lot languished and didn't become important. But there are plenty of examples that did, like Nashville, Columbus, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, etc.

Weed is also legal in Colorado, Massachusetts, and Michigan.

T-minus 110 days here in illinois!!!!

not that i'm counting or anything ;)

wheres the nexet hype?
nv error r

so in the end the us west half is all the same shit. its cold here.. its the same there.

there is no where thats safe so ya

in the US: atlanta, dallas, charlotte, perhaps LA? (at least its downtown)


outside: madrid, milan, mexico city, joburg, probably others

Mexico City is where it is because of Tenochtitlan which was initially built on a lake, Texcoco.

well life is but a bitch so it aint so?
color me stueped. i go to some bye

Austin, Texas

These cities were all decently sized for their time period relative to their states when they were selected as capital cities. Austin, however, was founded for the specific purpose of being a state capital a la DC and was centrally located for easy access throughout the state.

San Francisco is located well within California's borders because, for several decades, it basically was California. In the earliest decades, San Francisco was the undisputed center of industrial, commercial, legal, and cultural life in the young state. It completely eclipsed Monterey, the capital of Spanish and then Mexican Alta California from 1770 to 1845. Before the railroads, San Francisco was the primary port of entry into the West. Early California essentially grew outward from San Francisco concentrically--the University of California across the bay, Stanford in the farmland to the south, wine country to the north. It was a big city, with hundreds of thousands of residents, when lightly-populated southern California was still referred to as "the cow counties." No other state would have been allowed to carve out any of the heart of young California; borders were never going to be drawn close to San Francisco.

This is certainly true here. Mission Dolores and its attendant village was founded in 1776--but so, then, was the Presidio, a fortified military garrison for the Spanish king's soldiers to guard the entry to San Francisco Bay.

California has the 447 mile-long Sacramento River, on which its capital city is situated and for which it is named. When gold was found in the 119 mile-long American River just outside Sacramento in 1847, the ensuing rush, which birthed the modern state, saw thousands of people from all over the world sail into San Francisco Bay, through the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta, and upriver to the gold country. It was the primary "highway" for people and goods between the port of San Francisco and all points east. In turn, Sacramento--at the confluence of the two rivers--became the state capital, and cemented its bright future as the overland terminus of the Pony Express and, later, the first Transcontinental Railroad.

California also has the 366 mile-long San Joaquin River, which flows north through Fresno, Merced, Modesto, and Stockton, where it joins with the Sacramento River in the aforementioned delta.

Now, these rivers may not seem big when compared to the Columbia or the Missouri or whatever, but they are big enough to have made a huge impact on why, and how, early California was developed and populated.

Washington DC is a result of The Compromise of 1790.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1790

Maybe California should absorb those smaller states to the north of it?

Welcome to Seattle, California!

DC isn't in the centre of a state though. :P


Indianapolis and Columbus are good examples (even if Columbus isn't quite the largest metro in Ohio yet - today I learned that that's actually Cincinnati, which I'd always assumed was the 3rd city...). Austin and Tallahassee work as examples as well, but both are still overshadowed by multiple other cities in their respective states with locations that are a bit more strategic than just being in the centre.

This thread is asking the wrong question.

The issue isn’t why cities are located in the corners of States. Cities are going to get built where they are going to get built, regardless of the geopolitical entity that surrounds them.

The issue is why State lines weren’t drawn with their largest and most productive cities at their geographic center.

it all depends on how you slice and dice things.



by Urban Area (2010):

cleveland: 1,780,673
cincinnati: 1,624,827
columbus: 1,368,035

(as the fastest growing of the 3, columbus has almost certainly closed this gap a bit over the past 9 years)




by MSA (2018):

cincinnati: 2,190,209
columbus: 2,106,541
cleveland: 2,057,009



by CSA (2018):

cleveland: 3,599,264
columbus: 2,509,850
cincinnati: 2,272,152



cincy is either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd depending on metric.

in reality, these three cities are all extremely comparable to each other size-wise, which is pretty remarkable.

cleveland only jumps way ahead at the CSA level because it pulls in Akron and Canton, roughly 30 and 50 miles south of the city.

i can't think of another state whose 3 alpha cities are all that closely bunched together size-wise at the MSA level.

Beijing and Xi'an. Both cities of over 10 million people, and among the very few of China's large cities that aren't either coastal or along one of China's three major river systems (Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl / Xi).

Surprised Cleveland is relatively small today given the city was just shy of 1m in 1950.

Nature’s Metropolis is a very interesting book on urban development. It’s focused on Chicago but a lot being discussed in this thread is covered in the book.

If you want to phrase it that way. I think both questions are getting into why our cities are where they are. A lot of history is being shared that I wouldn't have known otherwise.

The thing with the MSA numbers here though is that separating Akron (and all of Summit and Portage Counties) out of the Cleveland MSA makes zero practical sense. Summit and Portage Counties are just as much, if not more, Cleveland's suburban and exurban areas than they are Akron's... the northern portions specifically for Cleveland. I mean, the Cavs used to play in in Richfield (much more so a Cleveland suburb) in Summit County... Sea World Ohio was in Aurora (Cleveland suburb) in Portage County... Cleveland's major outdoor concert venue where the summer tours and the Cleveland Symphony play is in Summit County. Yet somehow, both of those counties are all Akron's when it comes to the numbers -- that's just not reality.

In the US, probably Denver.