What if the practical steam engine had gone differently?

Newcomen, then Watt, turn coal into reliable mechanical power.

If it had gone differently: Power stays tied to water, wind and muscle; factories cluster on rivers and stay small.

1. 1780The Industrial Revolution, Growth stays flat and Malthusian; most people alive in 1900 live about as their great-grandparents did.
2. 1830The railway boom, Interiors stay isolated; cities stay walkable-sized and national markets never really knit together.