r/geography Geography Enthusiast 26d ago

Why aren't there any large cities in this area? Discussion

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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/tycoon_irony Geography Enthusiast 26d ago

They could've built a dam on the Missouri River similar to the Hoover dam and started a city similar to Las Vegas, or a city near the Black Hills mountains similar to Denver.

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u/zs15 26d ago

Could have, but they are so far from other economic centers that it wouldn’t make sense to do so.

And the Black Hills are far more historically relevant and protected than the foothills of the Rockies.

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u/AlexFromOmaha 26d ago

The Missouri isn't navigable much north of Omaha, and coincidentally, there's a city there.

(It really is a coincidence. That's not what founded the city.)

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u/pontecorvogi 25d ago

Phoenix has several rivers converging on its location. Don’t know if I completely agree on that