Hey fun story. If sprawl didn't happen, Detroit would have a stable population of around 2.5 million people and be about as dense as San Francisco.

Buffalo would've shrunk a bit from a 1960 peak, but it'd still be 2.6 times its current population at 601,000 people at 15k people per square mile.

San Francisco, on the other hand, would be *much* bigger, with 2.2 million people compared to 882,000. It'd be one of the densest counties in the country at 48k ppl per square mile and still not even get close to Manhattan's 71k.

Pittsburgh wouldn't have shrunk at all, growing only slightly from 676k in 1950 to 691k today, rather than 300k

Cleveland would have 1.1M instead of 381k.

In short: sprawl, not manufacturing, killed a lot of cities, and robbed others of being as vibrant as they could've been.

(Oh I forgot Saint Louis, which would now have 1.4 million people and be denser than San Francisco instead of a hollow shell of its former glory.)