Originally Posted by iheartthed
Chicago was pretty close to 4 million at peak, so the built form would probably look a lot like it does today, but with more infill in the areas that lost a lot of population.
I think NYC is the best measure to project what those cities populations would look like. NYC and LA are the only two cities of the 1950s era top 10 list that are larger in population today than they were then. Every other one of those other 8 cities is still significantly below peak population. L.A. was obviously not built out like the eastern cities at that point, so it had room to grow into post-war America sprawl patterns. So that's not as applicable to the situation of the other cities, which were all fully developed by mid-century.
NYC is 1.056 times larger in 2019's estimated population than it was in 1950. If you apply that to all of the other 1950s top 10 cities, besides L.A., you'd get this:
New York - 8,336,817
Chicago - 3,823,736
Philadelphia - 2,187,615
Detroit - 1,953,144
Baltimore - 1,002,892
Cleveland - 966,037
St. Louis - 904,777
Washington - 847,100
Boston - 846,325
Adjusting the 2019 list for these hypothetical populations:
1: New York - 8,336,817
2: Los Angeles - 3,979,576
3: Chicago - 3,823,736
4: Houston - 2,320,268
5: Philadelphia - 2,187,615
6: Detroit - 1,953,144
7: Phoenix - 1,680,992
8: San Antonio - 1,547,253
9: San Diego - 1,423,851
10: Dallas - 1,343,573
...And if I did this part right...
12: Baltimore - 1,002,892
14: Cleveland - 966,037
17: St. Louis - 904,777
22: Washington - 847,100*
23: Boston - 846,325*
*Under this scenario, Boston and Washington would actually be ranked lower than they are today.
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