Quote Originally Posted by dtowncitylover View Post
IIRC, it was a fight between us and Indianapolis to become the auto capitol of the world. We won. So another question could be what would Indy look like if they gained control of the auto industry? A city like ours? Perhaps they would've done things differently, diversified?

Hypotheticals are not pondered among academic historians considering the fact it's not history [[i.e. it never happened so why are we talking about?), but this topic is much too good not to talk about.

I've also wondered had the French won the Seven Years' War what North American would look like today. Montreal down to St. Louis would be French speaking lands. This includes Detroit, perhaps it would've taken the name "Pontchartrain".
In real life, Indy grew because it became the meeting point of a bunch of interstates [[65,69,70, and 74). Can you imagine the impact of that + the auto industry+flat land and no major water bodies in every direction? It would redefine sprawl. A huge city but completely auto-dependent, like a Midwestern Houston.

If the French had won the Seven Year's War, it would have completely changed world history. It's entirely possible that neither the American nor the French Revolutions would have happened. We might be living under a French King.