What if the Erie Canal had gone differently?

A ditch across New York State connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic and makes New York the American port.

If it had gone differently: The American interior stays cut off from the coast; the Midwest fills up decades later and through other cities.

1. 1869The transcontinental railroad, The American West stays remote; settlement and the national market crawl for another generation.
2. 1870The first globalisation, The world economy stays a patchwork of regions; no belle-époque boom, and no 1914 shock when it unwinds.