What if the US Constitution explicitly discouraged urbanisation?

[Thande]

The early United States was subject to a lot of Physiocratic influences that viewed a rural existence as being inherently superior to an urban one. Thomas Jefferson's influential "Jeffersonian democracy" view outright stated that the yeoman farmer was the ideal republican and city dwellers were hamstrung by being subject to the corrupting influences of financiers, bankers and industry, which he feared as taking the place of an aristocracy. Even later on, when a purist interpretation of this became untenable, there was still a sense (reflected in many other countries at the time as well) that city and country influence in a nation's government should be balanced fifty-fifty, even if the cities contained many more people than the countryside, and letting cities have a strictly proportionate influence was 'unhealthy' for a nation. In fact to some extent the remnants of this view still persist today in the rhetoric of some politicians, the notion that rural Americans are somehow more 'real' Americans than urban ones and so on.

With all of this in mind, what if the US Constitution actually contained clauses explicitly discouraging the growth of cities (and perhaps favouring the establishment of many smaller cities instead)? Of course the Jeffersonians' opponents, the Federalists as they would become, would have been opposed to this, so perhaps this would come to pass if Federalist-dominated New England had fallen out at the Constitutional Convention and gone its separate way. What would the structure and society of such a United States look like? In the long term, the overly idealised Jeffersonian model is inevitably going to crumble before the trends driving urbanisation, but I can imagine society looking very different if the constitution explicitly says this is a bad thing and therefore, at best a necessary evil.

Discuss...

 

[MNP]

My first thought is something analogous to the Prussian Junkers.

 

[Umbric Man]

We would probably have a lot less fancier Washington DCs around.

This is an interesting topic and I wish to go into more detail later in it...

 

[Socrates]

The Federalists were also strong in the mid-Atlantic: New York, Jersey, Philly, Baltimore etc. I really can't imagine this getting through. The constitution is there to set up the rules of government and protect basic rights, not to permanently design policy.

 

[twovultures]

The Federalists were also strong in the mid-Atlantic: New York, Jersey, Philly, Baltimore etc. I really can't imagine this getting through. The constitution is there to set up the rules of government and protect basic rights, not to permanently design policy.

Or permanently police design.

 

[SavoyTruffle]

Very urban New England threatens to secede?

What this does is give a lot of power to the more agrarian South, particularly Virginia (TJ had very vested interests).

 

[iori]

The United States is much smaller as the North-Eastern states refuse to ratify it and probably view it as an insult.

 

[Grey Wolf]

I can imagine many legal cases down the years as to what this clause actually means, and what "discouraged" means, and whether a city having a large park in the middle still qualifies or is exempt from the rule and so on.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Thande]

I can imagine many legal cases down the years as to what this clause actually means, and what "discouraged" means, and whether a city having a large park in the middle still qualifies or is exempt from the rule and so on.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Oh yes, I doubt very much it would be possible to put any kind of hard and fast rule in there, and I imagine sooner or later it would be quietly worked around--but I think it would have an interesting effect on society given how the constitution and 'the original intent of the founding fathers' was and is bandied about as a touchstone in American political discourse. I wasn't thinking a strict coherent ban on anything here, just maybe something in the preamble about it.

 

[hasdrubal barca]

Rousseau would be pleased at least

 

[pternagy]

What would prevent, instead of one big city forming, many small cities that happen to be right next to each other? New York City only became one city in 1898. In Australia, most of the big cities, Brisbane excepted, are actually a lot of little cities right on top of each other. London wasn't really a unified city in the period between the abolition of London County and the creation of the new city government. In many ways it is still a collection of boroughs around the square mile of the City of London.

 

[Minchandre]

What would prevent, instead of one big city forming, many small cities that happen to be right next to each other? New York City only became one city in 1898. In Australia, most of the big cities, Brisbane excepted, are actually a lot of little cities right on top of each other. London wasn't really a unified city in the period between the abolition of London County and the creation of the new city government. In many ways it is still a collection of boroughs around the square mile of the City of London.

New York only became one city in 1898...formed by amalgating 4 of the largest cities in the country (and Staten Island).

 

[Delta Force]

New York only became one city in 1898...formed by amalgating 4 of the largest cities in the country (and Staten Island).

Budapest is an excellent example of this. Modern Budapest was formed by the merger of the cities of Buda and Pest (also Óbuda/old Buda). Much like New York City, the cities that would later become Budapest were divided by waterways and only unified after bridges were built to link them. It wouldn't be too unrealistic for cities to avoid merging, I think one of the largest cities in Canada was only recently incorporated a few years ago through merging several smaller cities and towns together.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Highly unlikely, id imagine. Firstly, the otl constitution is very much concerned with the bare bones of a theoretical government structure. It doesnt deal with things like that, at all.

So to get such a provision, youd have to massively change it, change the whole concept, not just tweak a few lines.

Secondly, how on earth would you do it? No city shall have more than 10,000 people? Which is just going to mean that New York City is composed of 100 cities, which would make it a worse mess to govern than otl.

If they did put numbets in, theyd be absurdly low by modern standards, as neither manhattan nor philadelphia were very big at the time.

 

[Rich Rostrom]

With all of this in mind, what if the US Constitution actually contained clauses explicitly discouraging the growth of cities (and perhaps favouring the establishment of many smaller cities instead)?

This is extremely improbable. The Constitution as written rather intentionally omits any policy content. It is entirely about procedures - how the holders of offices will be chosen, how they will decide and execute policy, and limits on their powers.

Substantive policy has been written into the Constitution exactly twice. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery; and the 18th Amendment, prohibiting alcohol. (Swills a gulp of beer.)

For the Framers to write any sort of specific policy into the Constitution would require a very different group of Framers and a very different approach to the Framing.

It would also conflict violently with the federal nature of the Constitution. The growth or absence of cities is a local matter. For the Federal government to have any sort of authority over where people choose to live would be far more intrusive on state authority than anyone in that era would even imagine, let alone support.

Furthermore, why would the Framers even think such measures were necessary. The U.S. in 1790 was almost entirely rural and remained so for generations. The urbanization of the late 1800s and 1900s required technologies the Founders had no thought of.

Finally, what would these anti-urban clauses be? I can't even imagine how it could be done by some general rule. Require all citizens to own 40 acres of land and live on it?

 

[jkarr]

Theyd just end up ignoring it or passing a amendment to it....like everything else