Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox
Using say, a factor of 2 in metro population as "roughly equal," Missouri comes to mind.
St. Louis - pre-war brick formerly industrial river city, the "westernmost Eastern city"
Kansas City - stronger growth, agricultural railroading base, suburban form, the "easternmost Western city"
(In comparison, Seattle and Spokane is an MSA population ratio of nearly 7.)
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As someone who has lived in both - in my mind Kansas City is actually fairly similar to St. Louis without the large swath of pre-1900 urban core and corresponding industrial development/scars. That sounds like a big difference on one hand, but the western part of the St. Louis urban core and especially the pre-war suburbs of St. Louis have a lot of areas that are strikingly similar to the KC urban core "proper." As an aside, St. Louis has a major agricultural railroading base as well, where the eastern and western railroads meet and vast quantities of Illinois corn are transferred for shipment on the Mississippi to the New Orleans grain transfer and oceangoing export facilities. Although, a lot of that appears to also come in on trucks from central Illinois - the grain transfer facilities in industrial North St. Louis backup with trucks for dozens of blocks in fall.
But, I digress, your assessment isnt wrong, either.