Why are so many State capitals NOT the biggest city in the state?

[Horatio_Hellpop]

Richmond, VA is an interesting case. It’s centrally located, which is a plus. It was probably the largest city in Virginia for most of its history, but has been outstripped in growth by Tidewater municipalities like Norfolk and Virginia Beach. The metropolitan area is smaller than greater Tidewater and the Washington suburbs, but no individual NVA city is quite as big as Richmond (Arlington is comparable, but it’s organized as a county, not a city).

Virginia has moved its capital around a couple of times, twice in Colonial times and once (temporarily) towards the end of the Civil War, but the seat of government is comfortable in its present Shockoe Bottom locale and it would take more than yet another population shift to dislodge it again. Moving a state capital is a lot more expensive now than it was in the 1860s.

[Siam_Sam]

@Raguleader

And in my Texas History class, we were taught that they did it officially because of concerns over Houston’s vulnerability to attack, being so close to the sea.

Hmmm. In my 7th-grade Texas-history class, in Texas, they never mentioned that. They went with the farming-interests angle. I never heard mention of Texas’ vulnerability to sea attack.

@Raguleader

Ah yes, Texas, a long tradition of batshit insane ladies with firearms.

Indeed, Texas sucks.

[Raguleader]

@Siam Sam

Indeed, Texas sucks.

Actually, when I say “Batshit ladies with firearms”, I consider that a positive thing, but that probably says more about me than the state of Texas.

[Chronos]

It should be noted that the Northwest Ordinance, the legislation under which many states (including Ohio) were added to the Union, there was actually a requirement that the capital be located near the geographical center of the state. So it wasn’t entirely a matter of practicality by the citizens of a state to choose a central location.

I’m sorry, I just have to nitpick.

The city that houses the government is a capital.

A capitol is a building, usually American, in which a government meets.

This bugs me, to have two words which are so close together, and have such closely-related meanings, but which are nonetheless distinct. It’s like they’re deliberately trying to confuse us.

[BobLibDem]

I’ll throw out one more- land prices. I presume land in Albany was much cheaper to get for the government buildings than NYC would have been, ditto for Harrisburg vs Philly, Springfield vs Chicago, etc.

[BrainGlutton]

@jtgain

Why SHOULD it be the biggest city? I mean, all it needs to be is a place that has buildings where the people who work for the state government can get there.

Are you familiar with the concept of “urbanity”?

From The Geography of Nowhere, by James Howard Kunstler; Chapter 3, “Life on the Gridiron”:

In a nation [the U.S.] where the opportunity for personal profit knew no natural limit, unbridled economic forces were free to damage both nature and culture, and they accomplished this most visibly by degrading the urban setting. The great cities of Europe, long abuilding, were at once centers of political, commercial, ecclesiastical, and military power, and they showed it not just in their finely grained urban fabrics – their plazas, forecourts, esplanades, and galleries – but in the overarching civic consciousness with which buildings and spaces were tied together as an organic whole, reflecting the idea of civilization as a spiritual enterprise.

American cities flourished almost solely as centers for business, and they showed it. Americans omitted to build the ceremonial spaces and public structures that these other functions might have called for. What business required was offices, factories, housing for workers, and little else. Beyond advertising itself, business had a limited interest in decorating the public realm. Profits were for partners and stockholders. Where architectural adornment occurred, it was largely concerned with the treatment of surfaces, not with the creation of public amenity. The use of the space itself, of the real estate, was a foregone conclusion: maximize the building lot, period.

On the theory that politicians should not be subject to the blandishments of business interests, many states with big cities exiled their capitals to the provinces – New York to Albany, Illinois to Springfield, California to Sacramento – so the monumental architecture of government went up in cow towns where the great new capitol buildings looked bombastically out of proportion and served little civic purpose, while depriving the bigger cities of monuments and the large public gathering spaces that go with them. Historically, Americans considered the professional military to be an expensive and dangerous nuisance, to be kept at a safe distance in wilderness outposts. So, except in Washington, the architectural trappings of the army were kept to a minimum in the urban setting. The church’s influence on the development of American cities was practically nil, except for the Mormons in Utah, and their secular culture was at least as materialistic as the mainstream’s, so that the city they built is now indistinguishable, in its man-made elements, from Omaha or Spokane.

[elmwood]

As others have said earlier, state capitals are often located in or near the geographic center of the state, where the convergence of geographical, social, economic and political forces that usually result in the creation of large cities don’t exist.

Also, many state capitals were established in the very early days of a state or territory, when it may have been the largest city, but later was eclipsed by cities that were better located and poised to become larger cities. Classic example: Santa Fe, New Mexico, the population of which was beaten by Albuquerque, and more recently, Las Cruces. Same thing in Nevada; Carson City was outgrown by Reno, and later Las Vegas.

[Acsenray]

@jtgain

In the intervening 100 years, because it is the capital, Charleston has GROWN to be the largest city in West Virginia, and I’m sure that similar activities have taken place in the states that have their largest cities as the capital.

Furthermore, I speculate that many “ancient” capitals became the economic and cultural centers of their regions similarly as the result of some chieftain deciding, “this is where I’m going to hold court.”

[Johanna]

Too bad about Wyoming–a huge state with the capital stuck way down in one corner. Imagine having to travel there from Fremont County in the opposite corner of the state back in 1890.

Some years ago, Alaska was exploring the idea of moving the capital to a more central inland location–but not Fairbanks because of the rivalry with Anchorage. This idea had been around since even before they got statehood. John McPhee’s book Coming into the Country was partly about this new-capital search. At one point, they were going to move the capital to a place called Willow, between Anchorage and Fairbanks, but that plan was dropped. Currently it doesn’t look like the capital is really going to move after all.

@acsenray

Furthermore, I speculate that many “ancient” capitals became the economic and cultural centers of their regions similarly as the result of some chieftain deciding, “this is where I’m going to hold court.”

Hugh Capet, the count of Paris, was elected rex Francorum (king of the Franks) in 987, and I heard the reason the other nobles chose him was because he only ruled Île-de-France, the smallest territory of all–just Paris and a little area around it. They figured by making him king he wouldn’t be able to boss around the others. (Not sure how accurate this version is.) But guess what, as a result of Capet’s election Paris grew to be the most important, powerful city.