r/geography • u/tycoon_irony Geography Enthusiast • 26d ago
Why aren't there any large cities in this area? Discussion
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u/PETEthePyrotechnic 26d ago
I’ve lived across most of southern Montana at some point or another, including Miles City in the east. There’s nothing there. Some badlands, maybe, which are neat, but nothing to build a city for. Mountains are cool, but most towns there are old mining towns that were close enough to travel routes to survive. Bozeman is growing because it’s a pretty college town and too many people think the Yellowstone show is a realistic depiction of Montana.
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u/GomiBoy1973 25d ago
Montana on average is now 2nd or 3rd most expensive housing prices in the US. I spoke recently with a partner company rep where the company’s HQ is in Bozeman. He couldn’t afford to live there and was based in Chicago. It’s insane. When I grew up, Bozeman was a sleepy little college and ski town with a population in the summer half what it was during the school year. Missoula too.
Edited: Billings was growing too due to fracking in the Bakken oil fields and may be again, but Billings seems opposite to the rest of the country. It grows when the rest doesn’t for some odd reason. I grew up there (born in Missoula) but have lived abroad for 20+ years now
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u/AngryPhillySportsFan 25d ago
It's now the getaway quiet place for every rich person in the west wanting to play cowboy for a week or two every year. They bought all the cheap houses during covid and now want double what they paid.
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u/stumphead11 25d ago
You'd likely not recognize Missoula now. I grew up in Missoula, and live in the Bitterroot now. Every now and then I have reason to go to random Missoula neighborhoods, and it's mind blowing how much things have changed.
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u/edit_R 25d ago
Yellowstone only takes place in the summer for a reason.
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u/AngriestManinWestTX 25d ago
Honestly the most jarring thing about Yellowstone and other shows taking place in Montana or neighboring states (looking at you, Longmire) is the near complete lack of snow in one of the coldest parts of the Lower 48.
I get it, snow is a PITA to film in but Fargo does it so what’s their excuse?
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26d ago
Literally opened up google maps on a completely random part of that region. Its because 90% of it looks like this.
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u/KingOfYeaoh 26d ago
Lived in both Dakotas for short stints and can confirm this is the general look, especially western North Dakota that isn't the Badlands.
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u/Justame13 26d ago
It could also be the none Rockies part of Wyoming and Montana.
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u/KingOfYeaoh 26d ago
Yup. You could have told me this was near Sidney or Miles City, Montana and I wouldn't argue that.
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u/will592 26d ago
Random award for incredibly rare mention of Miles City, my dad’s hometown and one of the most desolate places I’ve ever been.
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u/Heavy-duty-mayo 26d ago
In the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Violet was depicted as a 12 year-old girl from Miles City, Montana.
I liked they included Montana in the movie.
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u/Clit420Eastwood 26d ago
I only remember Miles City because it’s where US-12 breaks off from I-94. Spent a long day of driving where that was the only turn I needed to make
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u/-Fraccoon- 25d ago
Whoa. At least they have the interstate nearby. I’ve been working in Watford City North Dakota for the last year and a half. Talk about desolate. The closest City is Williston, ND which is an hour away and Williston is about another hour and a half from just the interstate lol.
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u/Magenta_the_Great 26d ago
Drove to Havre from Missoula and it looked like this for most the day
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u/SEmpls 26d ago
Havre has that big hump coming out of the ground
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u/Magenta_the_Great 26d ago
It was very exciting to see something not flat when we started to get close
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u/stevenette 26d ago
Shit, this could be half a mile outside of Laramie.
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u/ScuffedBalata 26d ago
It could even be just a couple miles outside of Denver. The outskirts of Denver International Airport looks like this.
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u/Ok-Situation-5865 26d ago
I’m originally from a really flat part of Ohio, but the flatness and openness of SD was extremely unsettling to me when I passed through on my way to move out west. It felt like reverse claustrophobia.
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26d ago edited 18d ago
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u/apuginthehand 26d ago
Opposite here — grew up on the front range of CO and I feel uncomfortable when I can’t see the horizon. I live in N Idaho now (which is still part of this circle but mountainous and forested) and still don’t really love being amongst all the trees.
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u/Emperor_Neuro 26d ago edited 25d ago
I moved from Denver to Orlando. Every time I go back to Colorado, I’m amazed at just how far I can see. In Florida, there’s almost never a time when the line of sight exceeds half a mile unless you’re at the beach.
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u/Okiebryan 25d ago
Once I had a dog run away in Eastern Colorado. We could see him leaving for three days.
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u/CaptHoshito 26d ago
As a child growing up in South Dakota, I always remember riding in the car in the dark and seeing the lights of houses so far away that they looked like little boats on the ocean. It always gave me the creeps. I still get creeped out driving across the prairie, it's so desolate. Even in the daytime it's just vast and ugly (most of the year) and it's completely infested with billboards.
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u/MelodyMaster5656 26d ago
An actual picture I took of Montana.
That’s a house.
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u/Powerful_Variety7922 25d ago
The barely perceptible dot in the center of the photo is a house and not a teeny-tiny speck on my phone?😄
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u/_Hollywood___ 25d ago
That’s crazy. At least move to the woods so you have some trees to talk to when you go insane.
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u/bmalek 26d ago
Got the same from a random location.
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u/Complete-Repeat856 25d ago
Yep, pretty bleak. Awful place to live. During the day, I'd drive for hours just looking at that. During night, I'd imagine that I was driving past mountains, lakes, trees, etc.
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u/Jugales 26d ago
Look at all that space for activities!
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u/misirlou22 26d ago
Plenty of space to set up a badminton net
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u/Jugales 26d ago
Thinking too small. We can set up at least 3!
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u/Physical_Ad_4014 26d ago
Nope too much fucking wind, it makes local news if the wind doest blow for a few hours.
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u/Fantastic-Ear706 26d ago
Ah the great plains! This is what excited many settlers to come to north america. Although, it has vastly changed since then lol
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u/Little_Injury402 26d ago
Interesting! How has it vastly changed if you don't mind me asking? As someone from the west coast I'd think it hasn't changed at all!
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u/Fantastic-Ear706 26d ago
I am speaking on behalf of Canadas grasslands/great plain is one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world.
American Serengeti by Dan Flores goes into great depth about what used to be one of the greatest landscapes in the world. Almost all the flora and fauna has been wiped out or depleted to endangered status to make way for farming.
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u/altjacobs 26d ago
One of my favourite things to do in the summer is drive around east/southeast alberta and look for the ungrazed pastures, and if I'm lucky I'll find some heritage rangeland or protected areas.
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u/Fantastic-Ear706 26d ago
Hahah yup, the Cypress Hill are quite a beautiful area. If you head over to the Sask side you can check out the Grasslands National Park. Other then that you might find a quarter or two of ducks unlimited, wildlife lands or wildlife habitat lands. They allow grazing in some of those lands though lol
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u/earthhominid 26d ago
When Europeans first encountered it, the American great plains were some of the most fertile grain growing lands on earth. The many feet deep top soil facilitated insane grain and legume production as well as robust livestock development.
Since then, industrial ag production has decimated the local soil systems.
Basically, fertility that hadn't been encountered since the dawn of agriculture drew people in 2 centuries ago. Now those areas have been pretty well decimated to the point that they are comparable with other global grassland ecosystems
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u/Character_School_671 26d ago
A little overwrought I think.
It's still very, very productive by any measure. Especially by yield, which is the essence of productivity.
Yields are not less than when the sod was broken. They are more.
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u/Mimiatthelake 26d ago
The soil was so productive that good soil care techniques (composting, crop rotation etc..) were deemed unnecessary. The Dust Bowl and the depleted soil forced people west.
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u/Msanthropy1250 26d ago
This is quite false. Yields for corn and soybeans in eastern South Dakota where I farmed are much higher today than they were 30 years ago. Modern no till practices conserve soil and moisture, and planting populations have steadily increased. Climate change has actually benefited the area (so far), as the growing season is now about a month longer than it was in 1980.
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u/-Ximena 26d ago
This is terrifying.
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u/sentimentalpirate 26d ago edited 26d ago
As a Pacific Northwesterner, when I visited the Kansas City area it almost made me queasy looking at the horizons and not seeing foothills, mountains, or water. I really did not expect how disorienting it was going to feel. I mean I didn't expect it to feel like anything. But all of a sudden it was like vertigo, or like I could fall off the earth into the sky. I didn't realize how much of my life was constantly in a valley or on a hill next to a valley.
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u/OldBallOfRage 26d ago
My mother has this problem, she complains when there's 'too much sky' due to unbroken flat terrain. This place would be her personal hell. WAY too much sky.
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u/One-Earth9294 25d ago
Sounds like the opposite of a sailor. I can't imagine ANY of them ever complain about the times there's maximum sky lol.
It's when there's less of it they got a problem.
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u/Hanzer0624 26d ago
Same for me growing up in New England then visiting family in Minnesota. It always felt so vast and open. Like the sky was too wide.
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u/boomfruit 26d ago edited 26d ago
Experienced that last year going to Indiana after living on the West coast my whole life
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u/Cullygion 26d ago
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u/-Ximena 26d ago
I'm afraid to click. I don't even know what liminal means. I reject this offer.
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u/ReticulatedPasta 26d ago
Liminal just means “transitional.” Like an oddly moody but otherwise empty and not particularly functional hallway between rooms.
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u/-Ximena 26d ago
Thanks. I tried it. I still hated some of the posts I saw. Creepy things lurk in the darker pictures. 😩
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u/ReticulatedPasta 26d ago
Yeah in the context of the sub it does seem like they’re more interested in the creepy / scary aspect. But I don’t think it necessarily has to be like that to be “liminal.”
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u/ScuffedBalata 26d ago
Because cities require water. Virtually zero major cities were just plucked down on a flat piece of land.
Virtually every city in the world is at some kind of water feature, geographic, landmark, crossing point of travel, or trade routes, coastline, or something else.
There is just no reason to walk across an empty plane like that and suddenly say “I want to put a city here.“
That is why there are very few cities on the plains.
There are a bunch of small towns that were originally set up as trading posts for travelers, or stopping points for the old-fashioned railroads that needed water every hundred miles or so, but those never grew beyond a few dozen people in most cases. The largest of them are places like Grand Island, Nebraska, which might have something like 10,000 people, but even that one is on a river.
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u/NathanArizona_Jr 26d ago
The Missouri River runs through OPs map. You can see it, it's massive. I think historically it was difficult to navigate though
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u/KakaoFugl 26d ago
Next question - why does 90% look like this?
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u/Fantastic-Ear706 26d ago
It’s the great plains! Lol Glaciers flattened it
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u/RoryDragonsbane 26d ago
Glaciers caused the central lowlands, but didn't go far enough to form the Great Plains. They were once the bottom of a sea
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/geology/publications/bul/1493/sec1.htm
https://npshistory.com/publications/geology/bul/1493/sec3.htm
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u/RiceBowl86 26d ago
Edging Minneapolis be like. . .
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u/the_cajun88 26d ago
omaha, too
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u/idkrandomusername1 26d ago
Omaha freaked me out because there wasn’t anyone in the downtown area when I was there. It was a Saturday afternoon and it became foggy. Felt like I was in silent hill walking around
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u/DepRatAnimal 26d ago
When did you live there? Omaha has had a bigger bounce-back for their downtown from COVID than almost any Midwest city. https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/downtown-omaha-primed-for-growth-recovering-quicker-than-peers/
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u/idkrandomusername1 26d ago
This was only for a day in 2015, it was cheaper to fly out of there than another nearby city. When I heard about the population size I was anticipating it to be more bustling but didn’t realize how spread out the population is. Also nothing was open except for a jimmy johns? Uncanny vibes, would go back
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u/DepRatAnimal 25d ago
Must’ve been a bad day! I lived right outside of downtown from 2012-2015 and downtown always had a lot going on, especially the Old Market area. Omaha also has a lot less suburbanization and sprawl than comparable cities.
One thing that may have thrown you off, though, is that the city of Omaha takes up a large percentage of the metro area population compared to comparable metro areas. This is due to annexation policy that has allowed the city to annex more suburbs than cities in other states. So if you look at city sizes, Omaha appears larger than it does if you look at metropolitan statistical area sizes.
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u/BjornAltenburg 26d ago
Also fuck Winnipeg and anything Canadian even though the border was way more loose even 30 years ago.
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u/JediKnightaa 26d ago
Just conveniently closing the area right outside two major cities (even more if you include Canada)
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u/OddAstronomer5 25d ago
p sure they might have accidentally caught Duluth in the circle too...
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u/Form_It_Up 26d ago
Someone could write a lot more, but I think it being dry and cold is the major reason.
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u/zakress 26d ago
100+° in summer and -20° in winter isn’t helping desirability any
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u/FFunSize 26d ago
laughs in Montreal
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u/Torb_11 26d ago edited 25d ago
it's colder in a lot of that area than montreal.
edit: I actually looked it up some of the major cities in that area and im wrong montreal is generally a bit colder but not as hot
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u/ButtGrowper 25d ago
In Minnesota, we see Montreal’s record low temperature, -36°F multiple times per winter. Sometimes a week straight.
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u/jus10beare 25d ago
And hotter in the summer. Montreal is a paradise compared to much of this area.
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u/ForestWhisker 26d ago
It gets down into the -50f (-45c) range semi regularly. Montana had the lowest temp recorded in the lower 48 at -70f (-56c) which beats Montreal’s record cold which was -36f (-37.8c). When I worked in ND it would stay in the -30f to -40f degree range for weeks at a time and with windchill would get down into the -60f range. But also all those areas can get above 100f in the summer North Dakota having a record of 121f and Montana’s record at 117f while it’s never broken 100f in Montreal.
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u/beast_wellington Geography Enthusiast 26d ago
The answer to half the questions on this sub could be simply "water"
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u/that_kevin_kid 26d ago edited 22d ago
It is also one of the most volatile weather areas on earth the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes drag moisture of varying temperatures west to collide with dry cold Rocky Mountain air which causes tornadoes and ice storms semi regularly while also being difficult to predict even with modern instruments.
Edit: the guy below me is more correct. It’s volatile but this area is more of temperature volatility. Though I’ve been in an ice storm in this area and that’s enough for me not to build a city there.
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u/Jeb-o-shot 26d ago
Because there is no water and it gets very cold in winter.
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u/thecordialsun 25d ago
>very cold
there's an old rhyme in North Dakota about why no lives in Minot, "Why not Minot? The Reason? It's Freezin!"
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u/Paul__miner 25d ago
I recently watched a video about this, and they specifically noted that the Rocky Mountains, due to their height and length, act as a barrier to precipitation.
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u/Arkkanix 26d ago
cold and wind, next question
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u/TexAss2020 26d ago
Cities don't just happen. They grow up around industry, and usually that means having a port.
The reason most of the biggest cities are on the coasts or along navigable rivers is because things need to get to consumers, and shipping by water is still one of the cheapest ways to do that. So when a suitable place to create a port is found a city quickly forms up around it.
What makes a place suitable for a port is 1) near some industry that requires shipping (mining, agriculture, manufacture) and 2) has, ya know, water. A lot of it.
An example of this is when gold was found in northern and central California in the 1840s. People needed mining gear and the railroads didn't go that far west yet, so everything had to come in by ship. This led to the development of San Fransisco as a port city. That it was gold also made it the financial capital of the west coast, and thus a big city. But it was the port that made it possible.
None of the area you circled has anyplace to put a port. With rare exceptions, especially in the USA, no port means no cities, especially where there is no large industry to speak of. There is some mining and fracking, but that's about it. Nebraska has expansive agriculture, but the only suitable place to put a port is right where they did, in Omaha, right there outside your circle.
Another reason, though, is of course, most of that area is barren mountain ranges or badlands ill-suited for farming. To the east there are hundreds of small towns that popped up as local farmers markets, but you need farms to make that happen.
Notable exceptions to the cities-need-ports rule are Las Vegas, which has an industry that doesn't require the import of export of goods, just people, and thus has a crazy busy set of airports. Phoenix, Dallas, and Albuquerque all sprung up as cattle and sheep towns, but with the advent of the transcontinental railroad were able to become "rail port" cities later on. The same can be said for Atlanta, which has no port but is a state capital, and thus became the local hub for several area railroads, and later became a big city.
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u/GreatnessToTheMoon 26d ago
No need for a large city if population is low
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u/beerandfishtanks 26d ago
Chicken or egg right. Is population low because no big cities or no big cities because population is low? The real answer is geography and history.
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u/Immediate-Sugar-2316 26d ago
The distances are so large and the population so spread out that there is no need for it. There are no locations that can act as a 'gateway', nor any specific region with a denser population.
If there were a mountain range down the middle then there would be a concentration of trade through a single location. A large city would likely be at that spot.
Other locations with large cities also have a lot of natural resources in one spot which drives growth.
Denver is a good example further south which has a combination of factors which led to it being so large. It is located between LARGE mountains and plains making it an ideal spot for goods to be embarked. In addition it has natural resources nearby.
Calgary is another example further north. If the mountains were more traversable there would not need to be such a large concentration.
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u/zs15 26d ago
Yes and… there is generally a lack of classic city drivers, primarily a major, deep river, in that whole region. It’s faster and cheaper there to transport over land than water. The main economic driver is oil, so fuel is plentiful.
The outlier for the US is Denver (in this zone) and Phoenix. Both of which are sort of Oasis cities, where people initially settled because the trip to the Pacific was too much and haven’t boomed in population until very recently.
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u/Mid_Atlantic_Lad 26d ago edited 26d ago
What’s funny is that if you go north of the border Canada has several large cities along the same area. The reason why though is best left explained by people smarter than I, but part of it is that is the least worst option, since everything north is basically uninhabitable.
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u/Lomeztheoldschooljew 26d ago
By several you mean 2? Winnipeg and Calgary are the only ones. Edmonton is 6-7 hours north of the border and nothing in SK qualifies as “large”
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u/PhotoJim99 26d ago
Winnipeg is getting there too (~800k), and Regina and Saskatoon (250k and 350k) are not insignificant.
Even Regina, the smallest of the major Canadian prairie cities, would be the biggest city in MT, WY, and ND and if you exclude the bits of Sioux City that spill into SD, only Sioux Falls exceeds it and only by about 50k.
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u/Mid_Atlantic_Lad 26d ago
Calgary is larger than the largest 3+ cities in that circle. Edmonton and sbtue same. They are not small cities.
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u/Numerous-Confusion-9 26d ago edited 26d ago
No access to water that leads to an ocean. Edit: easy access
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u/BagProfessional7629 26d ago
What about the Missouri?
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u/madgunner122 26d ago
Stops being navigable at Sioux City. The Mighty Mo is also traditionally more like the Platte River; wide, winding, braided. The Missouri only deepened once channelization work was done by the Army Corps of Engineers
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u/Numerous-Confusion-9 26d ago
Good shout its quite a journey to get down the Missouri then the Mississippi. I think youll find theres a lot of towns along the Missouri. It also served as a main trade route during westward expansion when everyone was trying to go.. well, more West. The coasts will always be more appealing
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u/endlesscosmichorror 26d ago
Little further south but I was shocked to learn that Tulsa has one of the largest inland ports in the US
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u/Justame13 26d ago
Not a lot of people so not a lot of a reason to.
Take out Denver and SLC and the area without MSA above 1 million gets a whole lot bigger.
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u/freecoffeeguy 26d ago
OP on the outskirts Minneapolis, Kansas City, Omaha also.
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u/SilphiumStan 26d ago
Yeah, "why is this area that I intentionally drew to avoid major cities devoid of any major cities?"
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u/PrarieDawn0123 26d ago
But but but it’s not arbitrary! Duluth and Couer d’Alane have so much in common!!
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u/tycoon_irony Geography Enthusiast 26d ago
I just noticed the entire north central US didn't have any big cities between Minnesota and Idaho.
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u/Justame13 26d ago
"Big cities" wise its between Minnesota and the West Coast (Seattle/Portland).
Boise is smaller than Charleston and just slightly bigger than Dayton, while Spokane would be between Durham and Toledo.
Even SLC is more in line with Memphis than Denver.
Its a whole lot of empty once the trees stop in the mid-west until you get to the left coast.
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u/calimehtar 26d ago
Calgary and Edmonton have entered the chat
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u/Dkykngfetpic 26d ago
Calgary and Edmonton have much better farmland due to how glaciers ended up. And i believe more oil. Both of which help supported large city growth.
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u/Eagle4317 26d ago
Yep, there's an path of great farmland in Western Canada that goes up from Calgary to Edmonton and then arcs through Saskatoon and down to Winnipeg. Black Chernozem is perfect soil.
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u/tycoon_irony Geography Enthusiast 26d ago
Edmonton isn't really in the great plains, but in the Parkland Belt, a forest that receives more rainfall than areas to the south.
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u/greejus3 26d ago
Omaha is kinda big
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u/MrTeeWrecks 26d ago
Yeah, but we’re not in the circle in question.
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u/Jones127 26d ago
It’s funny that they circled 90% of Nebraska but left out Omaha lmao.
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u/MrTeeWrecks 26d ago
That tracks with the mentality of most of NE outside of the Omaha & Lincoln metros.
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u/mthyvold 26d ago
It is interesting because Canada has three sizable cities in that comparable region to the north: Calgary Edmonton and Winnipeg.
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u/hambonelicker 26d ago
Yet Calgary and Edmonton exist in the same Great Plains with even worse weather.
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u/Ilovefishdix 26d ago
It's dry, cold, and winter feels like it lasts dang near forever. The growing season is very short. It's hard to expand the roads to build homes in the mountains too. The mountainous land is expensive. If you've traveled on I-90/94, there's really not much east of Billings for most people. A few people love it. I don't get them. I think it's some of the most desolate land in the country
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u/themoosethatsaidmoo 26d ago
Conveniently avoiding major cities just outside of the red circle
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u/Brave_Mess_3155 26d ago
If you drive threw there in the summer at night your entire car will get encrusted with dead bugs. We were hitting so many bugs that it sounded like driving in the rain.
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u/SuperPostHuman 26d ago
Because people generally coalesce around areas that are conducive to commerce, that means access to large bodies of water/oceans/major interstate water ways. The circled areas are not reasonably close to the Pacific/Atlantic Oceans or Great Lakes. Also they're extremely cold, especially the northern most parts.
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u/MoeTheGoon 26d ago
When I see these posts, I always think; “Why would there be?” Usually there aren’t cities in places where there is no reason for them to be. It sounds dumb but that’s just the answer.
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u/GargantuanCake 26d ago
Lack of water. Look at a map of how wet America is by region then check where the big cities are.
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u/dimerance 26d ago
Cities almost always are built around water sources, either the coast, or rivers. Ain’t much going on there in that regard.
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u/WormLivesMatter 26d ago
Historically it was just agriculture and mining from east to west. There were train stop towns and towns to service those industries but that’s it.