Financial Capitals and Political Capitals
Big Ben (wikimedia)
I think Luigi Zingales is Italian, which might explain why he doesn’t seem to understand why the Founders established a capital in Washington, but Greg Mankiw who links to it has no such excuse and anyone ought to be able to see how illogical this is:
The biggest threat of all to the Big Apple’s financial supremacy, however, comes from Washington. The Founding Fathers wisely decided that the nation’s political capital should be separate from its financial capital (in both senses of the word).
As Ryan Avent points out the combo arrangement, though not what we do in the United States, is very common. Surely Professor Mankiw has heard of London, Tokyo, Paris, etc.
But as someone interested in cities, it is interesting to think about the different ways in which this works. One model, seen in France and the UK, is of a single dominant city. Another model, seen in Italy, is where your capital is also your largest city (Rome), but the main financial and business center is elsewhere (Milan). Then you have your scenarios, seen in the US and Canada, where a capital is established someplace a bit random specifically to avoid choosing between major cities. This tends to lead to capital cities with a reputation as “boring.”
It’s interesting that in the United States it’s extremely common to see this done with state capitals. It’s very rare to see the Boston/Providence scenario where the state capital is put in the state’s major city. You also see some of the Austin/Olympia model where the state capital is also a college town. But the most common thing seems to be the Albany/Sacramento model of putting the state government in some pretty random town that rapidly attracts a reputation (whether deserved or not I couldn’t say in the case of most places, but Albany is pretty terrible and August, ME is far down my list of nice spots in Maine) for being unpleasant.
90 Responses to “Financial Capitals and Political Capitals”
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July 15th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
In Utah’s case, it was because Salt Lake City was simply the first city to be founded by colonists from America in the area, so it got the largest initial population, as well as the seat of government and source of outward expansion.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
See also Tallahassee, chosen exactly halfway between Pensacola and Jacksonville (at the time the only two cities in Florida that mattered)
July 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
i think you also have to take into account geographic diversity, i.e. harrisburg is in the middle of pennsylvania.
the location for DC was also chosen for such a reason, it being in the middle of the original 13 at the time.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I wouldn’t say it’s “very rare”. 1/3 of the state capitals are also their state’s largest city.
But yes, Mankiw is quite the idiot.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
What Nutbagus and Fencedude said. My feeling is that geographical accessibility was the overriding concern for capital location-picking in the pre-modern era.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I think Matt is actually missing the main reason the US capitol was placed where it was. This wasn’t so much a question of balancing the major cities (Philadelphia was by far the biggest at the time and NYC was the barest shadow of what it was to become). It was the balance between north and south that mattered. There is a reason the capitol was positioned straddling two states so close to the Mason-Dixon line.
Mankiw’s idea that the founders didn’t want NYC to be the capitol because it was already the main financial center is ridiculous. New York was nothing of the sort in the 1790s.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Canberra, Australia and Brasilia, Brazil come to mind.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
On the East Coast most “random” capitals were chosen to balance the interests of merchants along the coast with farmers more inland: Harrisburg, Albany, Raleigh, Columbia, Atlanta.
Another model, seen in Italy, is where your capital is also your largest city (Rome), but the main financial and business center is elsewhere (Milan).
The German model, I think, is the most interesting, because I don’t think you can claim one city as the financial and business center. Munich may have a small advantage, but Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, and even Berlin have sizable local business presence.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Personally, I’m more in favor of the all-in-one model. Paris sucks, but that’s only because it’s full of Parisians. On the other hand, London and Tokyo are both wonderful places, and far more interesting than DC.
On a more personal, local level, Little Rock used to completely dominate the political, economic and cultural life of Arkansas, but has seen its economic and cultural dominance severely eroded by the explosion of Wal-Mart and Walton-related philanthropy in the North-west, and it’s starting to distort our politics as well.
No real point, just an observation, although the increasingly pro-big-business tilt of the Arkansas Senatorial delegation is currently a major stumbling block for both the health-care and climate-change reform efforts given Blanche Lincoln’s (D, Wal-Mart) spot on the Finance Committee.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Re Matthew’s comment “But the most common thing seems to be the Albany/Sacramento model of putting the state government in some pretty random town that rapidly attracts a reputation (whether deserved or not I couldn’t say in the case of most places, but Albany is pretty terrible and August, ME is far down my list of nice spots in Maine) for being unpleasant.”
————–
Matthew obviously has never heard about the sex life of Albany legislators , even though he had the object example of Elliot Spitzer as a tipoff.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Albany, America’s best kept ghetto secret.
Though to be fair, nearby Troy is much worse.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I’m not sure how Austin is a college town. Austin is much closer to the Sacramento mold of capitol than th Olympia.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Also, people are ignoring the influence of representative democracy where the physical presence of delegates, hence, requiring travel, was critical. It’s also one of the reasons we have the electoral college in the form that it is.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
There’s also Lansing MI, Springfield IL, Harrisburg PA, none of which are places I want to live. Annapolis MD isn’t bad.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I wouldn’t say it’s “very rare”. 1/3 of the state capitals are also their state’s largest city.
Sure, but I think what Matt means is that in a lot of those cases the state simply doesn’t have a “major” city, like North Dakota or Arkansas.
The only state capitals that are really major cities on a national scale are Boston, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Denver, with Indianapolis, Nashville, St. Paul, and a couple others falling into “kinda” territory.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
“I’m not sure how Austin is a college town.”
::Spit-take::
Huh? Have you ever been to Austin? I mean, it basically exists for two reasons a) it’s the seat of state government and, more importantly, b) it’s a support system grown up around one of the largest major land-grant universities in the country.
It’s population more than doubles when class is in session–if that’s not a college town, then I don’t know what is.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
As a Sacramento native, I must tell you that Sacramento is by far the worst major city in California. It’s Red Bluff with more trees.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
It’s very rare to see the Boston/Providence scenario where the state capital is put in the state’s major city.
Yes, my favorite part about living in Denver is that it is such a small city.
(Seriously? Boston, Providence, Atlanta, Jackson, Nashville, Indianapolis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Cheyenne, Boise, Honolulu.)
July 15th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Congress first met in New York and then switched to Philadelphia for another decade until the move to Washington DC.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
It’s kinda a shame that a kid from New York City never heard of the “Bear Mountain Compact”, hee hee.
See http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NEWS/80320039
An excerpt:
“The hanky-panky even has its own lexicon: There’s the “Bear Mountain Compact,” which says that what goes on north of the state park just outside New York City stays there. Lobbyists, staffers and reporters who seek to enhance their influence by bedding powerful lawmakers are known as “big game hunters.” And the men who sleep with the women lawmakers are “boy toys.”
“Unfortunately, many of the people who seek public office are flawed people to begin with and the environment in Albany just tends to bring that out,” said Paul Clyne, former district attorney in Albany.
Clyne issued a scathing report in 2004 on the internship program at the Capitol, famously saying he would never let his daughter become an intern. The report led to reforms in the program, including an end to fraternization between lawmakers and interns outside the office.
“There was a lot hitting on us and boundaries being crossed,” said one young woman lobbyist who was part of that scene for years.
In truth, the phenomenon is not new, and it’s not confined to Albany. By all accounts, the same thing goes on at other state capitals, particularly where the statehouse is far from the main population centers and lawmakers stay overnight several times a week. Men and women outside politics are prone to some of the same behavior when they go on business trips.
“One of the things about Washington and every state capital is for some people it’s like going to a convention,” said state Assemblyman John McEneny, an Albany Democrat and former Albany County historian. “What happens is you get individuals who would not behave the same way if they had the disapproval of friends and neighbors keeping an eye on them.”
———-
I think I see Matthew’s appeal to Washington — he is what the French call “la jeune fille” — a dewy-eyed naive ingenue.
Although I would NOT suggest he adopt Audrey Hepburn’s Capri pants and ballet slippers.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Leaving aside this discussion, I don’t understand how Ryan Avent’s comment addresses Zingales and Mankiw at all.
Zingales and Mankiw say it is “wise” to separate the financial and political centers. Avent replies that it’s common. But what does common have to do with wise? The fact that it is common doesn’t mean it is wise.
Better left-wing replies, please!
July 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Columbia, SC was pretty much a “stick a pin in the middle of the state” project, because having Charleston as the state capital was culturally and geographically problematic.
That original quote is a bit bass-ackwards, though. New York was a commercial city when the decision was made to build DC, but the “financial capital” thing came later.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
You also see some of the Austin/Olympia model where the state capital is also a college town.
Olympia isn’t really a college town. It has the relatively small Evergreen State College, but the University of Washington is in Seattle and Washington State University is far away in Pullman.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Posterous: Sorta. Maryland was a slave state, so in the geopolitical sense DC was kinda southern and most of the other proposals on the table were north of Washington DC. DC was put there by the Residence Act as a compromise so Alexander Hamilton could bolster support for his idea of taking up the states’ Revolutionary War debts, which the south was not especially fond of for a number of reasons.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
It’s not that I disagree with Matt’s analysis, but his examples don’t seem to be working for him too well, at least regarding state capitals. Mainly, it’s because he’s not taking into account what cities were at the time they became capitals. Sacramento, for instance, was arguably the major city in the state when the state was established — because it was at the center of the Gold Rush. Los Angeles and San Diego were complete outposts until much, much later. Austin might not have been the dominant city at the time of Texas’ statehood, but it was pretty close. It was probably between Austin, Galveston, San Antonio, Waco or Washington-on-the-Brazos. Dallas was only about four years old when Texas became a state. And its not like Austin was always a university town, either. UT wasn’t established until the 1880s. Before then, it was probably Waco that was the University town.
So I think the California and Texas examples actually help Matt’s point — that it’s a little weird to establish a capitol in a place that isn’t a nexus of capital. But times change and Gold Rushes run out and capital goes elsewhere, and suddenly Sacramento looks like a strange place from which to govern.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
The German model, I think, is the most interesting, because I don’t think you can claim one city as the financial and business center. Munich may have a small advantage, but Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, and even Berlin have sizable local business presence.
That was of course because most of German history Germany was divided up into hundreds of independent states, cities and principalities. That’s also why you there’s a divide between which cities specialize in which businesses, as in Cologne (fashion), Frankfurt (banking and financial) and Hamburg (media).
July 15th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I’m also not sure how Olympia is a college town: Evergreen College and St. Martin’s? – Not exactly world-renowned. Of the state’s two major schools, UW is in Seattle (largest city, financial center) and WSU is in Pullman (don’t get me started on that one). Olympia was made the territorial capital in the 1850s, when it was about the largest of many small frontier towns on Puget Sound (Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Port Townsend, Steilacoom), and when nobody knew which ones would take off. Its current capital status is more of a historical accident combined with inertia.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
If you read the Zingales quote in full on Mankiw’s website, its not really a comment on why the capital is in Washington, but rather, Zingales trying to find a cleaver way to say that we have a history of government not directly being involved in the economy – something that is apparently changing (according to him).
July 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Errata in my previous comment — Sacramento was not actually the capital when the state was established. It became the capital 5 years later . . . which sort of strengthens the point, since the legislature moved it there when it became clear it was the dominant city in the state.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I’ve always believed that one result of the model of separating the political capital from the business capital is that the government loses a large talent pool to draw from. For example, I’d love to get more involved in politics, but would never move from NY to Washington or, god forbid, Albany because of how much I’d have to give up (financially and socially) to do it. The result is that the people willing to live in those cities and able to work in government are often people who wouldn’t be as successful if they actually had to compete in a more competitive market.
Add to that the fact that our famously provincial Congressmen might have their minds broadened a bit if they had to live and work in Manhattan…..
July 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Re Anon at 24: “Washington DC. DC was put there by the Residence Act as a compromise so Alexander Hamilton could bolster support for his idea of taking up the states’ Revolutionary War debts, which the south was not especially fond of for a number of reasons.”
—————
It was a fucking payoff.
In exchange for letting Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law, cronies, patrons and 50 odd members of Congress get rich by buying up worthless Rev War bonds for 5 cents on the dollar from war veterans, widows, and orphans — and then making said bonds worth 1 dollar per dollar of face value by sticking the taxpayers with the debt — the Virginians got the opportunity to make a killing in real estate speculation on what had been a worthless swamp.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Olympia is not remotely a college town. The largest (and iirc oldest) state university is in Seattle, the next largest is Pullman, practically in Idaho and about as far from Olympia as you can get, and after those two the best state university is probably WWU, in Bellingham, on the Canadian border. I can’t even remember offhand whether Olympia even has a state school of any vintage, let alone of any size (is the wonderful but tiny state liberal arts college Evergreen there, perchance? I can never remember where it is).
The old joke is that at statehood the state’s cities (and regions) competed for the three big fiscal prizes that must be established in any new state: Walla Walla won, and got the state prison, with all its guaranteed jobs; Seattle came in second, and got the University, with its prestige and future prospects; and Olympia got a very pretty building right on the waterfront as consolation for being saddled with the legislators. It’s not entirely a joke; I grew up on Seattle’s Capital Hill, named in the hopes that it would indeed host the state Capital Building.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
For the record, while Washington is really comparatively boring in relation to other cities of its approximate size (Seattle, Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland), I’ve actually heard awesome things about Ottawa, sized between Calgary and Edmonton, which I’ve heard far fewer awesome things about.
But your larger point is true: Mankiw is making a weird and kind of dumb point here. Does anyone really think the geographic distance between New York and DC has significantly distance politics from moneyed interests? Or distanced the major media from the local, insular trivialities of DC society and helped them focus on real policy questions? Of course not.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Sahu says that: Huh? Have you ever been to Austin? I mean, it basically exists for two reasons a) it’s the seat of state government and, more importantly, b) it’s a support system grown up around one of the largest major land-grant universities in the country.
That’s incorrect– Texas A&M is the land grant college for Texas, not UT-Austin.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Re Stefan at 30: “Add to that the fact that our famously provincial Congressmen might have their minds broadened a bit if they had to live and work in Manhattan…..”
————-
Oh come on. You know New York Legislators. Which do you think they would prefer — to enjoy New York City’s cultural riches (Met Opera, Museum,etc) or to fuck nubile 18 year olds in some isolated backwater where their neighbors and wives won’t venture?
I mean, does the New York Times even know that Albany EXISTS?
How many of its reporters do you think jostle for the opportunity to report from Albany –vice downtown Fallujah?
July 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Mumbai/Bombay versus New Delhi is a good example of this. Neighboring Pakistan moved their capital from the commercial center, Karachi, to a new fangled Islamabad, but that might have more to do with the fact that the Pakistan Army HQ is in nearby Rawalpindi and the army can then keep a better eye on the civilians.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
The truly weird thing is that Zingales fears political capital interference with financial capital (the not-city sense of the word), while it seems dreadfully obvious that it’s financial interference in politics that was and continues to be the much larger problem. The financial sector has screwed up entirely on it’s own without D.C. help, and D.C. is only rushing in because the peasants with pitchforks (e.g. assholes like me) are demanding that it do so.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
This whole post is premised on the idea that there is ever some premeditated plan to either combine or separate business and political capitals. The political capitals are chosen by politics! Business grow depending on mainly economic factors.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I actually kinda like Albany, except for its Pyongyang like capital buildings.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
i’d like to second comment #21.
it seems like the reflexive anti-mankiw muscle just reacted without thinking.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Not sure if this has been said, but Canberra, Australia is a perfect example. They didn’t want to decide between Melbourne and Sydney so they created Canberra in it’s own little D.C.-like area. Really boring city but the houses of parliament are attractive.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
When Olympia was selected as the capital, it was an out of the way city exactly as you describe other capitals. The Evergreen State College was completed in the early 1970s, and has a total enrollment of somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand students, many of whom are in a satellite campus in Tacoma or engaged in independent studies elsewhere. Olympia is not a college town. Olympia isn’t really a normal boring state capital either. Olympia is something else. You really can’t properly compare Olympia to anyplace outside the pages of surrealist fiction.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
RE the idea that Olympia is still the Washington capital through inertia: also through regional competition and legislators’ self-interest. Although the Seattle metropolitan area probably has half the state population, and the Puget Sound Basin three quarters, the rest of the state (which, after all, periodically flirts with secession) would never countenance consolidation of state power in Seattle, so leaving it in neutral, inconsequential Olympia works for them. Leaving the Capital a couple of hours drive from Seattle also helps the Legislators avoid scrutiny, which they like.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
In NC Raleigh is certainly smaller than Charlotte but A) Raleigh is pretty centrally located and Charlotte is not so I’m pretty sure that was the reasoning and B) Raligh has one of the highest rates of growth in the nation so it may in time overtake Charlotte as the largest city (though Charlotte will almost certainly continue to be a finanical center.)
July 15th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
For Virginia, it would mean that the financial and political capital would be in Alexandria, just across the river from the nation’s capital?
July 15th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Sacramento has never been the dominant city in California; that was first San Francisco (if you discount Monterey) and then Los Angeles. If you read General Sherman’s memoirs on Benicia (I think that’s my source) you get a sense that they were trying to guess where the next big thing was going to be. Also I think it was tied up with railroad development, and a desire not to have the capital on the coast.
On the other hand, probably few posters are aware that until the one-man one vote decision (1962?) a lot of political power in the state was still in the hands of the agricultural and resource producing areas in places like Redding and Del Norte counties.
And since I’m married to a woman from San Bernardino, please take my word for it that Sacramento is not close to the worst city in CA.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Oh come on. You know New York Legislators. Which do you think they would prefer — to enjoy New York City’s cultural riches (Met Opera, Museum,etc) or to fuck nubile 18 year olds in some isolated backwater where their neighbors and wives won’t venture?
I mean US Congressmen. I think it would do some of those guys from Bumblebee, Mississippi and Dead Horse, Nebraska a world of good to hang out in Chelsea…..
July 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
“As a Sacramento native, I must tell you that Sacramento is by far the worst major city in California. It’s Red Bluff with more trees.”
Oh come on. This is a state with Fresno and Bakersfield in it.
Can’t see how Sacramento is worse than San Jose, and it’s better than Oakland.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Many — perhaps most — state capitals were chosen because of their central location. This was particularly relevant in the 19th century when getting to the capital could take days. Whether the capital is a “major” city today is often the product of other economic/demographic factors including the ability of the capital to generate economic growth in the 19th and early 20th century. Often this turned on accessibility via water or rail.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Re ga73 at 34: “That’s incorrect– Texas A&M is the land grant college for Texas, not UT-Austin.”
———–
But on the other hand, UT-Austin has over 50,000 students and only about 5 percent of them are from out of state. The Texas “10 percent rule” ensures top 10 percent of each high school can go to UT Austin.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
“Columbia, SC was pretty much a “stick a pin in the middle of the state” project, because having Charleston as the state capital was culturally and geographically problematic.”
Indianapolis started off much the same way… as a state capitol site designated on a map because (a) it was geographically central and (b) no one had bothered to explore the area and discover that the White River was not a navigable waterway. But then it somehow managed to become the state’s largest city anyway.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Re Sock Puppet at 48: “Oh come on. This is a state with Fresno and Bakersfield in it.
Can’t see how Sacramento is worse than San Jose, and it’s better than Oakland.”
——–
You forgot Oxnard.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
An advantage of having a place like Olympia as the state capital is that the cost of living for government workers is much lower than it would be if Seattle were the capital. As a result, the state employees who live there have a higher quality of life than they would if they lived in Seattle on the same salaries. A good deal for taxpayers.
Salem is similar for Oregon, except that more Oregon state workers seem to commute to Salem from Portland than Washington state workers commute from Seattle to Olympia. Probably because Portland is somewhat cheaper than Seattle, and the drive from Portland to Salem is a “short” hour, while the drive from Seattle to Olympia is a “long” hour.
I’d also note that some states with out of the way capitals “outsource” some functions elsewhere. For example, the Alaska Supreme Court sits in Anchorage, and the California Supreme Court sits in San Francisco. Many of those states’ legal functions are in cities that are not their capitals. But in Washington and Oregon, the supreme courts and most of the state legal workers are in the capitals. (In fairness to Alaska, getting from Anchorage to Juneau is not a simple matter, but that doesn’t give California an excuse.)
July 15th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
The Zingales argument is that the separation of our financial center and political center goes along with our separation of political and economic power. Pointing out that many other countries don’t work that way does nothing to undermine the argument.
It certainly doesn’t undermine his argument to note that France combines its political and economic capitals. When a right-winger praises America for doing one thing, you’re not going to convince him he’s wrong by noting that France does the opposite.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Maybe someone covered this up thread but at the founding of the nation NYC was not the nations biggest city or commercial center, Philly was.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Rob Mac: You’re basically right, but Philadelphia is way closer to the Mason-Dixon line than Washington DC is.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
As many other posters have noted (are half your readers from Washington?) Olympia is at the bottom of the Puget Sound which makes to a long, winding boat ride that never would have been the financial capitol of Washington.
Seattle and Tacoma were fighting for the chance to be the major financial city in the northwest when the klondike opened up. Seattle’s PR people beat Tacoma’s PR people to New York by about 6 months and were pimping Seattle as “The Gateway to the Klondike.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I spent a couple months in Sacramento, and it seemed like a nice city, attractive and walkable, only problems being that stuff tended to close down at the end of the workday, and that it’s sort of in the middle of nowhere.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Although these things are inevitably pretty arbitrary — depending as they do on where one chooses to draw boundary lines — I’d say by most reasonable definitions the largest Italian metropolis is Milan, by a fairly wide margin.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Re. 56 and its ilk: You may recall the Constitution at least suggests and at most requires Congress have an independently administered area. Congress would not have accepted Philadelphia so long as it was under Pennsylvania control, as they had actually been attacked there! That’s the whole reason the District needed to be its own, non-state-controlled territory: so Congress could provide its own defense.
And who thinks Pennsylvania would have gone in for that? We all seem to be forgetting the role that states have in the United States. If the French government decided to up and move the capital to Marseilles, it would only have to deal with the French government and the French people. The United States would have to deal with the U.S. government, the American people, but also on an entirely separate basis with the people of the state into which they wanted to move and the state(s) into which they wanted to cede the District. And that was even more difficult then, when loyalty was to states over the union, than it would be today.
Early on, DC had the twin advantages of being both central and territory in which no one state had a particularly strong interest or surrounding boundary. More MD than VA, but MD had Baltimore as by far the most important maritime port between New York and Savannah. What did they care about the loss of Georgetown? Plus it’s close to George Washington’s estate! Perfect!
July 15th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
@cynikal:
Klondike didn’t have much to do with it. Tacoma was dominant city until the railroad termination switched from Commencement Bay to Elliot Bay. You can thank the business leaders in Seattle at the time for that.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Q.E.D. Baton Rouge rather than New Orleans is the capital of Louisiana
July 15th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
You forgot Oxnard.
At least Oxnard is usually under the marine layer, and thus enjoys Santa Monica-like cool weather year-round. It’s a pretty drab town, but at least it doesn’t have the weather of Bakersfield.
And since I’m married to a woman from San Bernardino, please take my word for it that Sacramento is not close to the worst city in CA.
Ding ding ding! I think we have a winner. San Bernardino is like Southern California’s own little Rust Belt. When the California Planning and Development Report ranked the states mid-sized city downtowns, San Bernardino came in last place, and I can’t say I disagree with their reasoning:
http://www.cp-dr.com/node/1782
In the comparable report of larger cities (300,000+), Fresno won the top dishonor:
http://www.cp-dr.com/node/1732
July 15th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Gotta stick up for Sacramento, my sorta hometown…
As a lifelong California native, I’ve lived in a lot of different places in CA. I’ve visited more. Sacramento is a perfectly fine city, it has its problems (South Sac is still pretty bad), but it has an excellent downtown and also Old Sac. It is a little in the middle of nowhere, but there’s plenty to do (and only a little over an hour from the Bay, so day trips are easy). Walkable, good public transportation (though the light rail could use more expanding and less crazy people), friendly and multicultural (but without significant racial tension). Some of the suburbs are annoying (I’m from Roseville, which is basically the new Orange County and a poster child for suburbia gone wrong) but it’s generally a good little city.
Compared to San Jose, Bakersfield, Modesto, Stockton (dear God, Stockton!), Oakland, Milpitas, San Leandro (okay, let’s say most of the Bay outside of the South and East Bay, and most of San Francisco) it comes out looking pretty good. And it’s a hell of a lot better than L.A., but some people go for that sort of thing.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
This seems like kind of a stupid fight to pick with Mankiw.
Of course, Mankiw never responds because he’s too busy being an economics professor at Harvard….which is probably why Yglesias likes to criticize Mankiw.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I’ll voice some support for Sacramento. Yes, it’s kind of boring and a little too hot for my tastes in the summer, but it’s nowhere near the worst city in California. While Sacramento would not be my first choice when deciding where to live in CA, I wouldn’t categorically rule it out. On the other hand, the thought of living someplace like Fresno, Bakersfield, or pretty much anywhere in inland empire makes me have suicidal thoughts.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
This whole post is premised on the idea that there is ever some premeditated plan to either combine or separate business and political capitals. The political capitals are chosen by politics! Business grow depending on mainly economic factors.
The obvious counterexample to this is Japan, where the capital was moved to Edo (renamed Tokyo) precisely because it had already become an economic center for economic reasons, and a government there would be less isolated than in a remote location like Kyoto.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
On the up side, Albany has Steve Caporizzo. Plus, the Egg. Uh, that’s pretty much all I can think of.
Back in the day I learned that Albany was finally made capital, among other reasons, because at the time, it was a pretty big city, strategically located at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk, with easy access to Boston and the main Post Road to Montreal. Very soon after the Erie canal provided a continuous water link from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, so it can’t have been just random. I mean, Kingston is pretty horrible, but that wasn’t the only reason.
Fort Ticonderoga (best field trip). Patroons. SCOOM+T. Some things stay in your brain forever.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Albany is actually quite nice during the summer months. Washinton Sq. Park designed by the same guy that designed central park. Lark Street is like a very tiny “village”.
I also might add…it’s a college town as well. The Capital has 4 or 5 colleges of some kind within just a few miles.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I grew up in Olympia. While it’s true that it’s not at all a college town in the sense that, say, Madison is, there’s no doubt that Evergreen has left a real stamp on the place – without Evergreen, Olympia would still be weird, but not nearly AS weird, and not nearly as much fun.
As for Albany, its status as state capitol is rooted as the fact that it used to be the most important city in the state. NYC was set up by the Dutch initially only as a part-time post to supply Fort Orange (now Albany), which was the nexus of the fur trade. Since that time, Albany has probably retained its status as capitol for similar reasons as Olympia has – the rest of the state wouldn’t tolerate moving the capital to the big bad city.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I see I was mixing up my capitol/capital in the above post – just what they teach you not to do when you grow up in the capital!
July 15th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
But wait, NYC was the US capital for a time. Washington was inaugurated there. It was only moved to DC so that Southern states would agree to pay off Revolutionary war debt. Why are conservatives conflagrating this historical reality with some wishy washy fantasy about separating finance from politics. What evidence is there for this? Always with them a lack of evidence.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
The great part about California is that the CA Supreme Court decided to move down to San Francisco at some point, probably to make life easier for a good chunk of litigants.
So Sac’to is only 2/3 the capital.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Oh! And that central park! With the pretty lights at Christmas! And, the Equinox dinner at Thanksgiving.
Wow, I’m coming up with lots of nice things about Albany. Who would have guessed?
July 15th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Re: Huh? Have you ever been to Austin? I mean, it basically exists for two reasons a) it’s the seat of state government and, more importantly, b) it’s a support system grown up around one of the largest major land-grant universities in the country. It’s population more than doubles when class is in session–if that’s not a college town, then I don’t know what is.
No, no true. The population within the city limits of Austin is (believe it or not) 750,000- substantially larger than Washington D.C., Seattle, or Boston. Now of course the metropolitan area is much smaller than any of those cities. But regardless, there’s no getting around the fact that Austin is very much a large city, not at all comparable to Lansing, Bloomington, Pullman or Amherst.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Gotta speak up for Sacramento, where I grew up (Davis, close enough) and live now. What Lev (64) said, plus:
1. The weather isn’t as nice as it is on the coast, but the average low is 41 in January and 61 in July thanks to the Delta breeze. You can run comfortably in the morning all year.
2. The cost of living is far lower than anywhere in the Bay area and most of SoCal excluding the most remote exurbs.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Re: It’s very rare to see the Boston/Providence scenario where the state capital is put in the state’s major city.
This is due mainly to the fact that states (except a few small ones) generally tried to establish their capitals in some central part of the statement at least relative to population, which generally meant elevating some four-corner burg to the state capital. A few of these (e.g., Denver CO, Phoenix AZ) have grown into major cities in their own right, but a great many are at most small cities (e.g., Annapolis), and some, like Pierre SD and Montpelior VT, are little more than small towns.
Re: Atlanta Georgia. When Georgia became a state Atlanta did not even exist. The former capital was Milledgeville (a rather small town), which was fairly central. It was those damn Yankees who moved the capital to Atlanta during Reconstruction since Atlanta had become a major railroad center and an concentration point for occupying Union troops, and they wanted to keep a close eye on what the Georgia legislature might be up to.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Lansing is another university/government center, although MSU is technically next door in E. Lansing. Not exactly a cultural Mecca, but not a bad little town . . .
July 15th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
The cost of living is far lower than anywhere in the Bay area and most of SoCal excluding the most remote exurbs.
Yes, the cost of living is low precisely bc it’s not as desirable. Places where lots of people want to live (NY, San Francisco, etc.) have high costs of living, while places where people don’t want to live have low costs. Simple supply and demand. If Sacramento ever became so popular that lots of people wanted to move there, then its cost of living would go up.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Let me just say,
1. you totally missed why and how dc came about, even if you are obliquely right
2. as a current resident of albany ny, I can vouch that its a pretty terrible place; however, it was chosen as the capital for its natural waterways and access to the western part of the state through the erie canal (this was when syracuse was the westernmost “civilized” part of nys). Further, when it was chosen as capital, it was the sole trading post for canadian furs from montreal, which were prized commodities then. So- not quite random, but actually the opposite, which would make it quite strategic. for shame on the native new yorker.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
In defense of Albany, this (http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=820146)from today’s Times Union.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Lansing is not unpleasant…it’s next to nothing and without MSU it would be nothing. Columbus is the same story, except bigger. If you want unpleasant, try Topeka.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
“This tends to lead to capital cities with a reputation as ‘boring.’”
There’s Fugazi, and that guy who sells the chili and dogs.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Places where lots of people want to live (NY, San Francisco, etc.) have high costs of living, while places where people don’t want to live have low costs. Simple supply and demand.
This is true, although it ignores the geographic features that are especially pertinent in the cities you mention. Manhattan is an island, SF a peninsula. Both have limited space on which to build, hence property values are higher than they would be otherwise. Other cities have much more room to spread out, for better or for worse.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
@SammyG
The story I heard is that they would rather spend summertime in San Francisco rather than San Francisco. Before air condition.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Madison, WI would be the counterexample — it’s on many “most livable cities” types of lists. It really is a nice city, although there are basically three things going on there — state government, the University (and some other secondary education), and the insurance industry. The downtown has become startlingly urban recently.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:34 am
“This whole post is premised on the idea that there is ever some premeditated plan to either combine or separate business and political capitals. The political capitals are chosen by politics! Business grow depending on mainly economic factors.”
True in many places, but not everywhere. Brazil being the classic example of a premeditated decision to separate the two – hell, they built an entire new city for it. See also South Africa, which has separate cities for each branch of government.
“On the other hand, London and Tokyo are both wonderful places, and far more interesting than DC”
London’s a great city, but its status as dual capital causes some serious problems. Housing costs are astronomical and the booms and busts are greater than almost anywhere else on earth. It sucks investment away from the rest of the country. It creates enormous burdens on the transportation infrastructure. The national media is incredibly provincial. Excluding foreign news, you’ll find more non-Californian news in the LA Times than you’ll find non-London news in ostensibly national papers.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Prof Zingales is, indeed, Italian by birth, although IIRC he has studied and worked in the USA since he arrived in 1990. Right off the plane with a fresh undergraduate degree he had a great idea for a paper “The Value of the Voting Right.” I didn’t tell anyone, but I thought to myself “That kid is going places.” In the event going to cold and windy places.
July 17th, 2009 at 2:52 am
@12 austin is fast becoming your prototypical college-town-power-wielding model in the whole country, maybe usurping columbus OH. yeah there’s samsung, and motorola and dell and whatnot (I think that’s where you’re going with it?) so now it’s also a tech city. BECAUSE it was a college town to begin with.
I Live in Portland, Oregon now and grew up in Austin. Went to school in Olympia. I think the Washington model- locating UW in the business capital (Seattle/Tacoma), leaving the political capital nearby but definitely apart in Olympia, and spreading higher ed throughout the state- has drastically increased WA’s commercial, and hence cultural, viability. Whereas OR put their two flagship universities a stone’s throw from one another (Eugene and Corvallis) and the capital in what is now becoming suburban Portland (Salem), all seems dumb. U of O shoulda been in Portland, and if it were, Oregon wouldn’t be right behind Michigan for the highest unemployment rate.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
[...] Matt Yglasias weighed in, countering with the boring vs. exciting capital hypothesis: One model, seen in France and the UK, [...]