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solo-ran t1_j99i2cn wrote

Reply to comment by JimBones31 in What’s up with Bangor? by EmeraldMoose12

I went to a conference as a rep for a congresswoman years ago. Here’s what I remember: the trajectory for trains heading west - avoiding hills - makes a big difference in shipping. Halifax NS, Norfolk VA, and NYC-NJ are the three best natural east coast sites for depth and have the best paths west. NYC is the absolute best but the real estate on shore is too expensive plus labor… so Norfolk and Halifax were battling it out. This was about accommodating a new wave of huge ships… and Portland wasn’t close. There also were surprisingly few permanent jobs given the vast amount of activity. This information is 25 years old… but at the time that was the consensus.

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JimBones31 t1_j99jg6v wrote

That's really awesome insight. All of it accurate and lines up with my experience out here. I currently work in NYC on a tugboat and from all my history classes and shipping classes they all said that if Halifax had been focused on before NYC then it would have been what NYC is today.

I however, have much lower ambitions for a Portland container terminal. I wouldn't even aim for competing for ultra large carriers. I'd be happy to just take some trucks off the road and focus on domestic trade or even take some smaller ships coming from Halifax.

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Cutlasss t1_j9agogd wrote

Halifax would not have beat our New York in the long run. Halifax is one of the great natural harbors of the world. But New York has an overwhelming advantage. The Erie Canal. Because there is only a couple of places in the Appalachians that has good access to the Ohio Valley. And that gave New York a more than 50 year head start on any port that required railroads to get to the interior.

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DrGordonFreemanScD t1_j9awm3n wrote

The economic decline of upstate NY along the Erie Canal testifies as to the boom & bust nature of everything.

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Cutlasss t1_j9b42a9 wrote

Sure. Everything is subject to change. But the direction of change now is really in the direction of large cities with a lot of services and higher education. All of rural America is feeling it.

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DrGordonFreemanScD t1_j9f6f0d wrote

They've been feeling that for a long time now. That is pretty much the way things are going around the planet. Rural areas are dying out, as opportunities (for everything, sex, work, leisure) abound in larger population centers. That hasn't changed in decades. However, as the population ages, more old city folks are moving out of the cities. This is creating its' own set of problems. I don't see many ways in which this will change, but we humans are always lacking some amount of foresight.

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Cutlasss t1_j9h7ewi wrote

Well, a problem with that is that rural areas are increasingly unable to provide the medical services that older people need.

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