What if the railway boom had gone differently?

Steam rail collapses the cost and time of moving people and freight overland.

If it had gone differently: Interiors stay isolated; cities stay walkable-sized and national markets never really knit together.

1. 1825The Erie Canal, The American interior stays cut off from the coast; the Midwest fills up decades later and through other cities.
2. 1869The transcontinental railroad, The American West stays remote; settlement and the national market crawl for another generation.
3. 1870The first globalisation, The world economy stays a patchwork of regions; no belle-époque boom, and no 1914 shock when it unwinds.
4. 1871German unification, Central Europe stays a cluster of middle powers; the balance that broke in 1914 never assembles.