Make Your Hometown a Major City

NapoleonXIV

Banned
As we all know, many of the world's great cities were small villages up until only a little while ago. Tokyo, called Edo until 1869, was still a small fishing village until the Tokugawa made it their seat of power.

San Francisco had only 1000 people in 1847.

Los Angeles has had most of its main growth in this century.

So your WI is to turn your hometown into a major city. Using any POD you want, within the last 500 years

Plausibly.

And without Great Men, unless they actually existed.

And only if it is a fairly insignificant little village now.

An example might be Benicia, instead of San Francisco. Some mention is made in the SF wiki that Benecia, (which now has 26000 people) might have been SF, if things had turned out different.y.
 

DTF955Baseballfan

What do you consider insignifcant?

My home town has 75-100K, but that's probably too big for your POD.Actually it's lost some of its signifcance from years gone by because of economic factors. (Dont' want to say any more and give anything away as to where.)
 

Midgard

My home city has about 3 million people, has been around for (officially) over 1500 years, and is a capital of an independent nation of ~50 million people... guess it wouldn't qualify :eek: :D
 

Susano

Banned
Meh, very American perspective. Yeah, in the USA, thats an easy task, but here? My hometown is too overshadowed by Frankfurt, and Frankfurt exists since Charlemagne!
 

sumwhereinCA

Banned
lets see considering my hometown has 30,000 people and no one has heard of it...maybe if someone really important makes some changes around here.
 

EvolvedSaurian

HA!

There's... about a hundred people within five miles. There's been some natural gas exploration, but the closest major population centers would probably get the workers.

However, the place where I went to school has potential, with the steel plant and all the rest. If it got to any size, it'd probably absorb my hometown, so I'll count it.

So, have the natural gas be discovered about twenty years earlier, the steel plant in the 1800s and maybe a Silicon Valley type setup.

Maybe have Mark Twain sponsor a school here. He lived not too far away.
 

Ofaloaf

The fair City of Chelsea... Michigan.

A couple of things could've helped Chelsea become a major city, at least on par with Ann Arbor (which has a pop. ~100,000).

1. More important rail hub. It really just depended on where the tracks crossed to create a railroading town back in the 1800s. Thomas Edison's hometown had been fairly important until the railroads ignored it and chose another nearby town for their railhub instead.

2. At least one of the motor companies than were spawned here (never really got anywhere OTL) becomes successful and turns Chelsea into a bustling manufacturing city.

3. Jiffy mix becomes more popular. We've got the world HQ of it here anyways-- why not make it larger?

4. Jeff Daniels expands his theatre and advertises it and city more.

and somewhere in there, a community college and/or public university should be founded, adding a fair amount of college students into the Chelsea mix.
 

Solomaxwell6

Banned
During earlier colonial periods, the Ballston Spa keeps its population. Hundreds of years ago, BSpa was the 11th most populated region in the US (there are something like 50,000 inhabitants today). An earlier Erie Canal passes through the region to take advantage of the bustling town's trade, and keeps its bustling population. In the 19th Century, Abner Doubleday (who was born and raised about five minutes away from my home) becomes a major hero, both for his role in inventing baseball (he most likely didn't, and he never said he did, but people gave him credit for it anyway; if he said he did TTL, he definitly would've gotten credit) and his role in the Civil War (give him a bit of luck, and with popularity boosted by the rising status of baseball, people might love him). With his reputation boosted, he becomes governor of New York. His reforms particularly benefit the city he loves, and Ballston Spa becomes a major political and financial center of the US, saving it from the decline of Midwest manufacturing centers that led to the gutting of many other Erie Canal cities (Schenectedy, once The City That Lights and Moves the World, is now a gang ridden shithole, OTL =) ).


Then, when The Revolution comes, Ballston Spa becomes the capital of The United Socialist Republics of America.
 

Cloudy Vortex

Can't do it. Mesquite exists because of Dallas, or rather a railroad from Dallas to Shreveport.

For those of you in Corsicana, Dallas stole its destiny from you by bribing the Houston and Central Texas Railroad to run its line 32km west though it instead of you. Hmm... Corsicana Mavericks. :cool:

Anyway, like Susano said, it only matters if your town is the same age or older than its metropolis. If you don't have a major city in your area, there is likely a powerful reason and random chance and human decisions have little do with it.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Already been done :D

My hometown has a population of four million, is an independent city-state and is in the second tier of Alpha Global Cities.
 

pa_dutch

...My hometown is a suburb of Philadelphia, PA, that probably wouldn't even exist if Philadelphia hadn't become a major city. It's also right on the fringe of Philadelphia, so just moving Center City to my town wouldn't be all that big of a differance. The only thing I can think of is that there is evidence of colonial Swedish settlement in my town predating the English, so perhaps if New Sweden survives, something could happen... Though it wouldn't exactly be my town, and I'm sure there was some logical purpose behind Philadelphia's exact location.
 

Tocomocho

In my case it is pretty easy. I live in a town of 70.000 inhabitants that could have a far better destiny.

The POD is in 1500. Unlike OTL, the Catholic Monarchs don't move the 2nd Chancillería to Granada, so Ciudad Real remains the administrative center of southern Castile. In 1561 the growing city is chosen by Philip II as the new capital of his empire, instead of Madrid. By 2007 the Royal City (Isn't it a perfect name for the capital of a kingdom?) is the capital of Spain and the head of an urban area with 5-6 million of inhabitants.
 

Gladi

carlton_bach said:
Defensive positions? I could certainly see its attraction as a fallback position. If England remains fragmented, the value of such a position could quickly become obvious, and then all you need is for the country that holds it to become important.
Click to expand...

Defensive position for what? You don't just goo "aw, if I built a major city here it would be sooo defensible!"
 

carlton_bach

Gladi said:
Defensive position for what? You don't just goo "aw, if I built a major city here it would be sooo defensible!"
Click to expand...

Defensive position for a royal court. An early medieval royal government is itinerant and relatively sall, and guilding a retreat there makes sense. In the course of the Middle Ages, governments become larger and stationary, and that attracts service industries. I know of no megacities that grew from such origins, but quite a few second-tier cities have their roots in government seats (The Hague comes to mind, or Brussels - you got Bruges and Antwerp in the country and you govern from Brussels?!).
 

Michael

Flocculencio said:
Already been done :D

My hometown has a population of four million, is an independent city-state and is in the second tier of Alpha Global Cities.
Click to expand...

No one wants anymore of your singa-wank :p

I don't even know the proper name of the place where I was born (I keep being told the colloquial one, the suburb's name, and the name of the town) so I'll just go with Geelong. Ned Kelly wins his pub fight and declares it the capital of the New Republic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top