Cities in the Colonial Age

The whole "Gulf of Mexico" kerfuffle has me again thinking about Latin America and its place in the Medieval America project. (As many people refer to the entire hemisphere as "America"). And something I often think about is if it, like the United States, would be this crazy novel thing, or more closely resemble the 1500s, within a certain amount of reason. It is always fascinating to think of the region as this sort of strange bridge between the "pre-modern" world and the modern one. And I also think, in a world reverted to Medievalism, would it again be more bustling. This is probably not super surprising to people, but New York City is not the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, probably not even close. I do actually wonder if any "American", and I mean cities in the general United States landmass, would rank in the top five. It's actually quite possible to imagie the place as something of a backwater, or at the very least, perhaps like Medieval Russia, populous and complex, but somewhat sequestered from the wider goings on. It's notable that in the Colonial Era, the continent was much less of a concern than the Caribbean Islands, and I can see Panama, (whether or not they're able to technologically maintain a canal) to be the center of gravity. This isn't to say the Caribbean would necessarily be larger, as they wouldn't have colonial overlords extracting from them, and it might actually be difficult supporting a major metropolois on an island with medieval technology (for instance, water would be a huge concern), but it's interesting to ponder.

This is a census of the ten largest cities in the U.S. by decade. I would say by 1830 the U.S. cities started to have ceilings that would be higher than a Medieval muncipality would, in all likelihood. This and this are also good resources if the biggest cites as the Colonial era came to a close, keeping in mind it's very imperfect as a litmus, but it's where the biggest cities are comparable to the largest cities in medieval society, more or less. So the largest cities in the New World, around this period seem to be, in very approximate order,

1. Mexico City, Mexico,
2. Salvador, Brazil,
3. New York City, USA,
4. Puebla, Mexico 5. Lima, Peru
6. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
7. Havana, Cuba
8. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
9. Santiago, Chile
10. Carcas, Venuezuela

Gudajalara, Guanajato, and Kingston would also be contenders. So it's very likely Mexio would possibly have a sizeable number of major cities, but I think for a good deal of Latin America and the Caribbean, which were settled earlier, and were more important in the Early Modern period, there would also be more of a "cap". That is, the earlier you settled, the less grace you have to "catch up".


As you can see, the U.S. really did not start building up these cities until the 1800s, and this is where the wild cards to pop up. This article mark every sizeable settlment in the U.S. by chronology, and it's interesting that no city build after 1867, with Vancouver, seems to in general be among the bigger cities on White's map, not even Birmingham, Alabama, so I think that's a pretty good cut-off point. This would actually cut off a great deal of inner Brazil (Which one could make a case for seeing a LOT of its urban centers collapsing), and some Southern Cone countries. The Southern Cone is one I dwell on a lot--in many ways its development has resembled that of Canada and the U.S. as it does Latin America, and even if the rest of Latin America "reverts" more than becomes something brand-spanking new, would that apply to the Cone? Although, looking at the research I was surprised to find out how old and alreayd developed some Argentinian cities were.