Why These Capital Cities are DOMINATED by other Cities in Their OWN State | America's BETA Capitals 

That also helps to prevent the largest city from dominating state politics (one of the main things Chicago politicians complain about lol).

@@jasonthompson7277 I've heard some folks from southern Illinois complain about Chicago being the dominant political force, so I just assumed the Chicago politicians would be just fine with that. :D

In Delaware, our capitol of our state and in my county are both exactly center of the area, so no one has to travel unfairly further than anyone else to get there to do business.

@@cliffshockley4406 And the only state smaller is Rhode Island, so it takes about two hours to drive the entire length of Delaware. If you lived in Westby, Montana it would take 9 hours to drive to the capital, Helena, and that's running 80+ MPH.

It should be the largest city so that the most citizens can be connected to their leaders and testify directly at the capitol

LasVegas is closest to Los Angeles... and the Hoover Dam electricity.

I think people forget that these capitals were established in the 1800s, there were no huge metro areas like today, some capitals were based off the former territory before they became formal states

@@295g295ok?

True -- the main migration route across the state heading for California was the trail along the Humboldt River, the path that later became US-40 and now Interstate 80. Carson City and Reno had access to water flowing east out of the Sierra Nevada via the Carson and Truckee Rivers, which was in scarce supply elsewhere in the state. (Particularly the infamous "40-Mile Desert" between Lovelock and Fernley, east of Reno.) What allowed Las Vegas to flourish was not only the Hoover Dam electricity, but also the now-rapidly-declining Lake Mead water supply.

Carson City is better.

What about Rochester?

It’s the oldest city in NY

Yeah, I love how New York didn't even get a countdown of the cities that outrank Albany. ;p

Then how about Sacramento being dominated by Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego?

@@tomfields3682 True. Rochester has 202000+ pop

In no small part, it's because the state government becomes a larger and larger employer.

​@@JayTempleThe state governments of California and Texas have little to do with the rapid growth in those cities.

sacramento is the best

Well in Austin’s case it was more a massive tech migration from silicone valley.

Sacramento isn't a major city.

Sacramento was chosen because when California became a state, Los Angeles and Southern California were lightly populated. Sacramento was a good location because the Sacramento River lets out into the Bay area but it would be much easier to defend than San Fransico if California came under a surprise naval attack. The United States was very aware that it would take many months to respond to a threat on the West Coast of the United States, especially before the Transcontinental Railroad and the Panama Canal.

Olympia became the capital way back when Washington territory was formed in 1854, 3 years after Seattle was founded in 1851. So this was way before the rivalry between Seattle and Tacoma happened. Instead Olympia was chosen because at the time the main population center was in Vancouver, WA across the river from Portland, and Washington wanted a capital far removed from Oregonian lobbyists. 6 years later in 1860 these were the top 5 counties 1. Clarke (Vancouver): 2,384 2. Thurston (Olympia): 1,507 3. Walla-Walla (Walla-Walla): 1,318 4. Pierce (Tacoma): 1,115 5. Spokane (Spokane): 996 As you can see Seattle’s King county didn’t even crack the top 5. Later on when Washington became a state in 1889 a number of other cities were considered such as Steilacoom, Vancouver, Port Townsend, and Ellensburg. Ellensburg suffered a major fire that same year and Olympia remained as the capital. In 1890 the top 10 cities in Washington were; 1. Seattle: 42,837 2. Tacoma: 36,006 3. Spokane: 19,222 4. Bellingham: 8,135 5. Walla-Walla: 4,709 6. Olympia: 4,698 7. Port Townsend: 4,558 8. Vancouver: 3,545 9. Ellensburg: 2,768 10. Centralia: 2,026 However in 1870 Olympia was the second largest city in Washington. 1. Walla-Walla: 1,394 2. Olympia: 1,203 3. Seattle: 1,107 4. Port Townsend: 593 5. Port Gamble: 326 6. Steilacoom: 314

Somewhat like Canberra or Brazila .

It feels weird to see Spokane as the second largest city in Washington. Just doing its own thing on the east side of the state I guess.

@@Ex_Caseus_Fortis what’s so weird about that? Plenty of states have their two largest cities on opposite ends, like Philly and Pittsburgh or St.Louis and Kansas City. Either way Spokane isn’t exactly alone, Tri-Cities has over 300k people in the metro area and it’s also on the east side. These are the largest metro areas in WA 1. Seattle-Tacoma: 4,034,248 1a. Seattle: 3,106,868 1b. Tacoma: 927,380 2. Spokane: 597,919 3. Vancouver (w/o Portland, OR): 515,771 4. Tri-Cities: 311,469 5. Olympia: 298,758 6. Bremerton: 277,673 7. Yakima: 257,001 8. Bellingham: 230,677 9. Mount Vernon: 131,179 10. Wenatchee: 124,118

Thought I was the only one to see that lmao

I'm not surprised. Texas drivers are notably HORRIBLE and accident-prone. Don't just take my word for it, look it up.

Austin drivers are built different

Oh my.... Didn't notice it until you pointed it out

Fresno county just crossed 1 million residents

Fresno is a surprise big city just like San Jose which is more populous than San Francisco.

We don't talk about Fresno here in Sacramento. Or Stockton. If you've been to either you know why 😂

@@mattr2626 Oh, I am well aware. It is just surprising.

me too, totally caught off guard with that. For how little Sacramento is talked about, Fresno is even less so.

One of those small to nonexistent capitals before Houston was San Antonio.

Also nacodoches and even lil San Augustine before that. Austin was chosen for its central location.

Ah, the Texas Archives War, which has a statue of Angelina Eberly to honor it in Austin where she looks like she ran outside in her robe and used a magic wand and firm slap on the backside to fire a cannon at oncoming traffic. Fun fact, only part of that is true!

That why (especially in Virginia) it's better to judge a city by its metro area

Fairfax has gotten so dense that there's not many open places to put people. And it's horribly expensive to live in as well

And as I've asked multiple former residents of Fairfax County: "Could you name a place that is 'quintessential Fairfax' (you know the first thing you think of when you think of Fairfax County)?" Not one could. It's essentially no where USA. It has no soul, no sense of place. That's why it's population is declining. And that lack of a soul is essentially true of all suburban Virginia. Many of the other counties in other regions are still growing, but some are trying to learn from Fairfax's mistakes by trying to build multi-million to multi-billion dollar "downtowns" or "town centers" to create a sense of place that they destroyed for a time in abandoning the core inner-cities of Virginia. In the Virginia suburban counties' pursuit of keeping the "wrong" minorities at bay or not wanting to be around poor people of any race much less help them or of the state not allowing--via actual court-adjudicated decisions--white leadership in Richmond to "dilute" the Black vote by annexing white exurbs (you name it this commonwealth has done it in the reality of structural/de jure racism/classicism) there has developed a level of fractured co-existence between localities that if not openly spoken of as in the '70's, '80's, and '90's when it seemed all suburban Virginia was "ascendant in wealth, popularity and overall economic growth" in all regions to now all inner-cities have made huge comebacks with many like definitely Roanoke City whose individual city-proper GDP growing to over $750 million more than the combined-proper GDP of Roanoke County and the City of Salem, Roanoke's immediate, long-term inner-suburbs (of a combined population of about 10,000 more residents than the city itself) and that's with several large projects within Roanoke not even coming on line in the next year or so (which should grow its financial heft to well past a $1billion GDP gap). The quaintness and overall more recently found attractiveness of say Norfolk's Ghent neighborhoods, Edgewater, Downtown, and other areas. Richmond has its famous Fan District, Museum and Carytown neighborhoods along with its Forest Hill, revitalized Church Hill, soon to be spent $500million in just affordable housing over the next five years not to mention the $4billion already spent and the next $4billion coming in everything from the Sauer's developments to Co-Star's campus to the Diamond District (and God help them if the casino squeaks by). Roanoke's neighborhoods of Deyerle, Grandin Court, Raleigh Court, Downtown, Old Southwest and of course South Roanoke and the South Hills have regain their panache and with newly arrived residents from as far afield as Michigan, California, Florida, Ohio and Tennessee, Roanoke City has found fans that far out-strip the extremely denigrating rhetoric of what Salem and Cave Spring Roanoke County conjured in steering new residents away from the City. And beautiful in-fill developments are complementing well the older renovated homes in all these Virginia inner-cities. @@sarahcantrell9821

@@user-mk7uc2zr1rFairfax is not declining, it’s stalled, just like the rest of the metro area and like the rest of the major cities in the country. And you’re talking about Fairfax not having a soul as if it’s a city. Fairfax is a county. A county that is a suburb to Washington DC. Compare Richmond to DC not Fairfax. That’s like comparing a Richmond suburb like Hanover County to DC. What makes Hanover so “quintessential Hanover”?

Richmond has been stepping it up majorly. Virginia is weird with the cities without counties and the counties without cities.

Thank you!

🙏

Thank you!

Where's arizona?

@@levikindred8007 I was wondering that too but realized the video is about capitals that are smaller than the states biggest cities. Phoenix is Arizona's capital and the largest city in Arizona so that's why its not here

Hi

New Mexico's capitol is indeed cool. I've toured it. The most awful looking capitol building is in Salem, Ore. It looks like a wine cork on top of a mausoleum.

French travelers placed a red stick along the Mississippi River to mark where they planned the city.

and another unique thing about santa fe is that its the oldest capitol in the US which nobody really knows (edit my bad he mentioned it in the video, i was scrolling through comments wayyy to early lmao)

@@SwannSacWe've all done that a few times.

While the St Louis metro area is the largest metro area in the state, the "center of gravity" is probably closer to Columbia (and Jeff City) than to St. Louis, thanks to the also substantial Kansas City metro area (about two-thirds as large as that of St. Louis) on the opposite side of the state.

@@ptorq I apologize, I did not literally mean center of gravity here, that was a bad word choice. Just meant that the StLouis metro is probably still the foremost metro in the state

This is largely due to St. Louis being an independent city since 1877 that can't annex new areas like the ones in Virginia.

yea the stl metro area is bigger than kc

I’m only 28 and grew up in the somewhat close but also not close small town of Salem… Saint Louis was “the city” for our area despite being almost 2 hours away… anyhow, even I’ve watched Saint Louis decline further and further in my lifetime, again from 2 hours away. It’s sad, really. STL was such a beautiful city, and it still could be. If only all the manufacturing jobs wouldn’t have been sent off shore…

Easier to use city population for this one since some of the cities are in the same metro area and some in metro areas outside of the state in question.

Good point.

Well if the Cities are in the same Metro, than are they really all that different?@@MileageMike485

@@MileageMike485 The cities that the states largest city and capital city have basically fused into one metro like Twin Cities seems like probably should be kicked out of the list, since there is little difference between the capital being in the core of a metro, a second city, or decent sized suburb.

The city limits make more sense because metro areas include all the sprawl that doesnt actually represent the city itself. The city limits aren't "arbitrary" just because they didn't annex all the suburban sprawl that occurred after WW2

Texas should be its own country

That illustrates the reality that NJ is primarily portions of metro areas of other states’ giant cities. When states were created, keeping the capital city in the interior of the state was important for identity, and to shorten travel times. New Jersey has no heavily populated area that would truly be its interior.

@@brianarbenz1329yeah the only “city” i can think of would be newark but that’s really only due to being right by nyc

I always thought of Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth as the big three NJ cities clustered around New York City.

Trenton is a terrible city.

@@brianarbenz1329Which is why Great and glorious Delaware should annex all of Southern Jersey, alongside the whole peninsula

I’m glad to have helped make your life complete.

I lived in Chesapeake for 18 years. We don’t want anything north of Richmond

that's too bad, coming from a NOVA resident lol

@@usefulpineapple4538the people are rude there meh

Born and raised in hampton roads and ur completely correct. NOVA is essentially DC Lite and has little to do with the rest of the state

NOVA is destroying the state@@cleolikesguitar

I was with you til the end. Austin and SA have a long way to go before we even talk about them being one metro area. 😂😂 but other than that, I fully agree

@@KingAsa5 Yeah, you're right about SA and Austin, but it just seems that way now since you NEVER seem to leave SA with all those "little towns" like Selma, through Kyle, and then New Braunfels, THEN San Marcos . . . it just seems like 35 from SA to Austin is one giant "little" city.

​@@adellemery3336There's a ton of nothing between New Braunfels and San Marcos. As for Austin being the capital, when it was selected as Texas's capital in 1839 it was in remote wilderness, near the edge of what Texas effectively controlled, far from where everybody lived in the Houston area. So it made little practical sense at the time, as many Texans pointed out. It only makes more sense now since Texas has expanded westward, as Mirabeau Lamar predicted. But the whole being in the center thing is kinda overrated anyway. If the capital is in the center when most people are living off on one side (e.g. Nevada) that's just making more people have to travel a farther distance.

@@kjhuang I hope you're from Texas, Kenneth, bc if you are, then you'll know we're all required to take a Texas history class in what is now middle school. I know all about how Austin was chosen to be the capital, and as for my post, I was being F-A-C-E-T-I-O-U-S about what's between SA and Austin. There are stretches, where I'll admit, the deer and cows outnumber the people and cars.

Austin , San Antonio , Houston , Dallas is a huge triangle.

Orlando today would be a better choice for the capital because of its central location. Would Tallahassee miss it much if the capital moved elsewhere? I’m sure it would take a financial hit, but two big universities, particularly FSU, would still help keep it afloat.

@@Gatorsfan601probably enough in Central Florida going on already. Having Tallahassee in the panhandle kind of cements Florida’s ownership of that region imo.

Ocala would be a great choice. Near the beginning of Florida's Turnpike and still within driving distance of Pensacola and Tallahassee.

Alaska has repeatedly attempted to move its capital and actually kinda succeeded in moving it to Willow in 1976. But voters rejected the funding needed to make it happen. The real answer is: once the state capital has been set for a long enough time, no one wants to move it.

Moving a state capitol to a larger city for the sake of being being in a larger city is about as idiotic and wasteful of resources as it gets.

Meanwhile, Cheyenne, Wyoming is in the corner of the state, because there are no more centrally located options or any other real options at all.

Except NJ. The capital, Trenton, is way down in population, and is on the western border.

And the "e"s in Helena, Montana are both pronounced as short "e"s.

Lol I was gonna say this never thought of how flatlanders would pronounce that stuff

Is it really that bad? I’m from northern VA- plenty of housing, public transportation(for US standards) and it’s been growing rapidly throughout my whole life. Interesting to hear that it’s stalled out, but that might be from Covid, since so many people move to the region to get closer to the federal government.

Hampton roads was a river-based coastal community (hence the “roads”) and was never meant to handle this many people, which is why Norfolk is literally sinking. The whole area is marsh. But the navy keeps INSISTING cuz they like deep harbors… so… here we are. 🙄 They’ve only been cities since the 1970s, when Virginia Beach thought it would be cute to convince all of Princess Anne co to incorporate and then everybody started doing it. Suffolk has a huge initiative to try to DEincorporate like Bedford did. The county-less city concept means we can’t get funding in a normal way like most counties across the country do.

Lansing originally was farmland when the state capitol moved there in the 1840's. Prior to that the capital was Detroit which was the cosmopolitan center of territorial Michigan. However Detroit sits in the southeast side of the state. Back in the days when people got around via boats, horses and walking it was necessary for the state capitol to be centralized around the population, hence Lansing was born. Also the US and Great Britain were still largely at odds with one and other and Detroit being a border city, people were still concerned of a possible attack from the British via Windsor.

So was Galena. Ever been up there?

Elgin didn't strike me as having that much population, either.

I was in Alaska during this debate, and this is right. But it's probably better to say that Juneau is the de jure capital city, but Anchorage--to the chagrin of the rest of the state--is the de facto capital. There are more state workers in Anchorage than in Juneau. I grew up in Anchorage and yet never went to Juneau, because it was really too hard to casually travel to.

People just don't think about Nebraksa having a metro city because they think about it is just a large rural farming state, which is mostly true. But the Lincoln and Omaha metro areas(which are almost close enough to be considered 1 metro area now) make up 75% of the entire state population.

I mean technically we do have major league sports if you count the world series being held here all the time, but yeah, Omaha tends to pretty much be the forgotten city of the US.

We don't care cause it's boring and sucks

@@DENVEROUTDOORMANboring translation I can’t get drunk

​@@DENVEROUTDOORMAN What people would say about your state (with it's big ugly "C" on it's flag. The Roman alphabet is so aesthetically lame compared to Asia's writing systems) if weren't for your mountains. Mount Fuji outclasses all US mountains anyway. In history, in cultural importance, and in aesthetics and shape

Wow. Didn’t even know about that one

@@MileageMike485 It all depends on the side of town you commit a crime, will determine where you go to jail. St. Johns in Clinton County, Charlotte in Eaton County or Mason in Ingham County.

I suppose Mason was designated as the county seat before Lansing became the capital.

Lansing was little more than a developing railway town when it became the capital and the decision to make it the capital actually created a lot of public backlash. Mason was actually more powerful than Lansing at the time, so when Lansing tried to take the county seat Mason agreed to move some county buildings to Lansing in exchange for retaining the county seat.

Hy-Vee and Casey's keep Des Moines relevant as well

I’m a Harrisburg resident and it sucks here but a fun fact is on game days in state college. That city/college town becomes the 3rd largest in population behind Pittsburgh and Philly

@@isaiah5654I wish Penn State was in Harrisburg or the Harrisburg area. Most state capitals benefit greatly from having the primary state university campus in their midst.

Fellow Kentuckian (although I live in South Carolina) here. Do you ever tire of people asking you what state you're from and they immediately assume you're from Louisville?

@@parkerbrown-nesbit1747 I'm actually a Michigan native. But people have definitely assumed that when I say I'm from Kentucky lol. Not that annoying, just an opportunity for them to gain perspective.

@@kaia.4688 it's always Louisville or Eastern Kentucky 😉

At least I-64 connects Frankfort to Louisville and Lexington. I stopped by the capitol on my only visit to the Commonwealth and was impressed with the floral clock.

Wikipedia is really helpful for proper pronunciations. There were several here; a small distraction from an otherwise good presentation.

Did Mobile annex some land? They’ve been the smallest of the big four Alabama cities for quite some time.

@@Gatorsfan601 They did a few months ago. They annexed 3 out of the 4 areas on the west side of Mobile into the city limits - The Cottage Hill corridor, King’s Branch, & Orchard Creek. The area along Airport Boulevard near Mobile Regional Airport didn’t get annexed into the city limits [863 No votes to 431 Yes votes].

@@TheLeaderKee i figured they had to in order to have such a sudden, big population increase. It’s also amazing how little separation there is from the largest city to the fourth largest in the state, and that Birmingham is the smallest of the four after being top dog for so long. Connecticut is the only other state I can think of with such close competition. Of course, Birmingham’s metro population is by far the largest in the state, but I think Huntsville may challenge in the next 25 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Huntsville and Decatur metros are combined and a few more counties are added over time in the future .

Capital cities are often also along main transportation lines. So southern capitols are traditionally on waterways, while other areas are on canals, railways or other crossroads.

3, central Jersey is real and I will fight you on this

​@@kevinbritt8427where's central jersey?

@@dow70k45 below north jersey and above south jersey, i think thats where the quikstop from jay and silent bob is that bend is almost the middle of the state

@@circleinforthecube5170 so lakewood area is considered central jersey?

Brazil is much more centralized population wise than the US

Apparently we do things a little differently in the United States. But then again, Hawaii is the only state with rainforests, while Brazil is LOADED with rainforests across perhaps half of its land area. Things like that can have an effect on how cities are built.

Interestingly that isn't the case for NC. Especially since the original state capital of NC was New Bern, which is on the coast.

@@Lunakat3 that’s an oddity damn

Memphis would’ve fallen behind Nashville sooner had it not been for Memphis annexing the Cordova area in the 90s. The annexation only delayed the inevitable.

@Gatorsfan601 You are correct about the city proper. But not the metro area. Nashville has been growing since the late 70s and 80s at a faster rate. Memphis' growth, as a metro has been slow but consistent. And the state has made a steering effort to help stem Memphis' growth in the past. Like creating the tiny town law or creating specific areas that Memphis is not allowed to annex and making Memphis plans is growth 20 to 30 years in advance.

But again, it is not unusual for Memphis to fall behind Nashville. And it is also important to note the state has done things to severely help slow, if not out right eliminate Memphis' growth. What will be interesting to watch is how Memphis chooses to address it.

Nope too boring...we don't care

Same issue in CT ...Hartford metro has more people than the top four cities COMBINED ...the only reason why hartford is in "4th" is because the city proper is very expensive to live in ...Bridgeport is cheaper but doesn't have the influence like hartford does ....I would pick New Haven ( second city by far ) and Stamford ( our rising city) before Bridgeport...

US Midwest..... beautiful? Yeah right. Not in January. The LEAST popular US region globally.

The comment I was looking for!!

He also left it out of the other video. He doesn't mention South Carolina in ether video.

You also pretty much have to use charleston county because charleston can’t build buildings above the church so many people live in the surrounding area if you take that into account then it’s almost 3 times the size of columbia

That is not what the video is about

Your right, I never heard of Columbus until I became a truck driver

@@dow70k45 I don’t believe that.

rundown Cincy? Cleveland has no downtown

I think we skipped South Carolina. City limit wise, Charleston would be 1st and Columbia 2nd. For metro population, Greenville metro would be 1st, Columbia 2nd, and Charleston 3rd.

I think he forgot Charleston surpassed Columbia not long ago

@@ethanellis4662 No he doesn't mention SC in either video. It's the ONLY state he doesn't mention.

If you pronounce St. Helena Parish, Louisiana the way you do the Montana capital, you will get punched in the face by a local. They hate any association with a faraway state.

No longer. Davis’ statue was removed about 10 years ago.

It's a shithole of a city. The capital honestly should move.

South Carolina will fight you for that title. Our roads are horrible.

Florida mind is it's own thing. Blame Disney

@@jermichaelkirkland2446 if it was cuz Disney, it’d be Orlando

A lot of people don’t understand the difference between city and metropolitan area. Miami is Florida’s 2nd largest city. And has the largest metropolitan area in Florida. While Jacksonville is the Florida’s largest city. But the 4th largest metropolitan area in the state. -Lifelong Brevard County, Florida resident

Miami metro is by far the largest

Most Floridians dont really count Jacksonville due to the city incorporating the entire county. Almost any Floridian will tell you that Miami and Tampa are bigger, as two are by far the most important cities in the state culturarly and by population, with Orlando being a close third. The Miami metropolitan area is MASSIVE, and you could say the same with Tampa. While you are right, just keep in mind the Jacksonville is kinda cheating

He did a BAD job with New York. He focused on NYC, which is IRONIC because the focus of this video was STATE CAPITALS that are NOT THE LARGEST CITIES in their respective states. Also pathetic was that ALBANY was only mentioned in the end of the segment for a FEW SECONDS and he NEGLECTED to mention ANY FACTS AS TO WHY the capital is in Albany and not in NYC. A PATHETIC BOTCH JOB.

I thought the same thing, living a short walk from there.

I agree. Moving the state capital to Worcester would also breathe a lot of new life into Central Mass and spur a lot of development. It would probably bring the population density of the whole region on par with eastern Mass over time.

Massachusetts does not need to move its capital, Boston is fine as the capital

@@angusb99 dude, central Massachusetts, especially Worcester, is doing fine especially with development, it's like you haven't seen Worcester. Plus just because the capital moves or is in a different smaller town doesn't mean the population and population density is going to grow. Look at Springfield IL or Albany NY and you'll see there's not much population density around it anyways. So why are people in these comments saying dumb things still?

Boston is on the Massachusetts Bay. If bays count as oceans, then Annapolis on the Chesapeake Bay should count too.

Annapolis: I'm on the water too.

Sinfull huh? New Orleans was too black. Let's not play games.

@@carltonbanks5470 You have no idea what you're talking about lol

@@504ever4 That 3rd grade response says I do.

@@carltonbanks5470 Your original response was a third grade response

@@504ever4 It's a factual response. Go whine someplace else.

When I was writing the script I figured it probably wasn’t pronounced like it looked so I actually found a RU-vid video from a local to see how it’s pronounced.

He did mispronounce Helena though.

Should have done that for MANY others as well.@@MileageMike485

The entire downstate should be its own state: Westchester and below. Given that Albany would have to approve it, it's doubtful.

Why are people in these comments saying dumb things? No, NYC doesn't need to be its own state just because it's vaguely "too large to be" people in these comments sure do love saying dumb things all the time

@itzpro5951 NYC already kinda does it's own thing

The channel "Atlas Pro" did a thought experiment a year or 2 ago abourt re-drawing state boundaries to what would make better sense now, as opposed to what was known when they were initially drawn. I found it to be quite fascinating.

This is one of those ideas that sounds okay on paper, but in practice wouldn't have the positive effect all of the advocates think it would. NYC pumps a ton of money into the upstate region. Upstate is largely struggling because of changes to the US supply chain over the last 50 years due to global trade, and not just because NYC exists or the state is more progressive than its neighbors. It was inevitable that when global shipping got cheaper, manufacturing would move to capture the bottom dollar on labor costs. I agree that there are flaws with NY but it's state investment made with NYC tax dollars that are keeping the area solvent at all. If you think just breaking the state in half will suddenly make all the jobs come flooding back, you need only look at the struggles in Wisconsin (a state that's largely the same size and population as this proposed new state) to see how that would go.

Most of them. The ones that I didn’t have myself are linked in the description.

I like to visit all these state capitals I seen Topeka monument and it looks very dead😅

I didn't think I'd read Smithfield RI in these comments lol

The economy in Vermont IS NOT rather poor. Look up the stats. Vermont does well in many economic areas such as low unemployment and decent per capita income.

Excellent observation. Primo geographical thinking

Yes, logistics were always a concern. Kentucky's County borders were drawn ostensibly so that any part of the county was within a one day ride by carriage from its county seat. I would guess that state capitals were designated under similar considerations.