Re: how important are the old factors of a city?
I'm wondering, even today, do factors that determined the success of a city in the past (major rivers, solid ports) still play a significant role in a city of today?
I think they do, but not in the original way. The port of Boston may have shriveled, along with the fishing fleet, but the waterfront offers new economic opportunities for recreation, tourism and luxury living--and the memory of history. The port was good as a workplace and it is good as a playground.
You could say the same of St. Louis, along with San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Savannah, Seattle, Vancouver, and New York.
Most cities on Cyburbia’s Top Ten Places to Live poll fit your criteria. It is hard to think of a single good city without water or some other geographic feature, such as mountains (which were never very utilitarian). It’s not hard to think of some cities that lack these features and are not so good. Rather than bash these places here, I’ll let you make your own list; a lot of them can be found in the “No way would I live there” department of Cyburbia’s top ten poll.
I ask this because with the development of rails and highways, development patterns altered, but with continued air traffic increase and the furthering of the wireless/digital age, does geography still play a huge role?
If you take a strictly utilitarian view of life and the workplace, it no longer matters so much where you live, unless you are in certain industries, such as entertainment, publishing, finance or atom bombs. I did all my Christmas shopping on the Internet, and I noticed the parking lots were not quite as full as last year. More and more people make their living on the Internet.
But man lives not by bread alone, and yes, geography does still play a huge role—maybe huger than ever, now that people have a bit more freedom to choose where they live. Just look at all the comments about weather and setting on the Cyburbia Top Ten poll. With the advent of air conditioning, people are choosing to live in the Sunbelt (but they also grouse a lot, about the fact that there’s not much to do).
Cyburbians, being largely urbanists, prefer cities with large areas of pre-automotive urban structure, such as (in order) New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, Portland, San Francisco, Toronto, San Diego, Philadelphia, Seattle and Vancouver.
There are plenty of others that share the preferences of Cyburbians. If they have money, they indulge their geographic preferences and move to one of these places, driving the cost of living even further up, by supply and demand. These places are not growing much in population, in spite of being desirable to live in, because they are pretty much locked up, growth-wise, by NIMBYs and their servant, zoning. If you consult the law of supply and demand, you could say that hidden evidence of the continued growth of these places is the ongoing upward march of house prices and rent.
Most Cyburbians are income-challenged and mature realists who recognize that they can’t necessarily live in their dream cities, because they can’t afford to, and the job competition from the like-minded is too fierce. According to the Harris Poll, most Americans (also being realists and perhaps less in love with cities) have shifted their dreams from nice cities to nice climates, which are much more affordable.
So, yes, there is a geographic factor emerging to supplement water and mountains: a climate with a mild or nonexistent winter. This is one factor that explains ongoing migration to Florida, California, and the Sunbelt in general.
Air traffic, imo, is pretty much neither here nor there.
Like, is Austin or Portland never going to achieve, say... Seattle (for the sake of argument) status because they don't have anything like the Puget Sound for ease of access? or can the Boise's of the world find their own advantage and potential independent of advantageous geography?
It’s no longer “Puget Sound for ease of access”, and hasn’t been for a while; it’s Puget Sound for the atmosphere: the foghorns and the nostalgia left behind by the stevedores and lumberjacks, and their predilection for hot coffee—and the fact that you can walk. It’s great for a few years until the perpetual drizzle gets inside your bones.
For their own sake, I hope some alternative to advantageous geography emerges to allow places like Boise to emerge from the shadows of mediocrity (btw I think Portland is misplaced on your list and I thought Boise was near the mountains—never been there), but it hasn’t showed up yet, or if it has I am not aware of it. Maybe they can figure out how to get rid of winter in Boise.
