New York outpaced its rivals through good fortune and determination. It was blessed by geography: A large, protected port that remained free of ice throughout most of the year, its closeness to the open sea, and a river that provided it with easy access to a vast hinterland gave it a privileged start. New York's merchants, capital rich and risk taking, used these endowments to good advantage by dredging shallow passages in the harbor, and by forging canals and railroads that enlarged the city's hinterland ever more. But more important in the story of New York's rise than geography or even infrastructure were the commercial enterprises that its merchants built. Here, where the Hudson meets the Atlantic, they fashioned trading houses that connected the British industrial economy to the cotton plantations in the American South. New Yorkers bought cotton in the South for transport to Liverpool, returning in their sailing vessels the bountiful goods of Britain's industry to equip and clothe western farmers, northern workers, and southern plantation owners. Once they drew this trade into their port, it was all but impossible for others to compete. Advantages in trade, in turn, could be translated into other enterprises. Drawing labor from the densely inhabited streets along the East River, manufacturers large and small produced ever more printing presses, carriages, books, and ready-made clothing, supplying not only New York's unrivaled urban market but also much of the rest of the nation. Along the fine boulevards of southern Manhattan just north of the Battery, bankers, insurance agents, and lawyers set up shop and lubricated the machinery of trade and production. Strategically placed at the center of a rapidly growing economy, New York's bankers, manufacturers, and merchants reaped proceeds from the cotton fields of Louisiana, the iron works of Pennsylvania, the sugar plantations of Cuba, and the railroads extended throughout the nation.
The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850-1896 -- Read it? Worthwhile?
The only one of these that doesn't apply to New Orleans is that it doesn't remain free of ice throughout most of the year. It stays that way ALL year.
As for the rest, it simply illustrates that New Yorkers were better capitalists. Ironic from a bunch of people who keep citing Mises. And yet, despite all that, the south had a higher per capita income (by a good chunk) and most of the richest people in the country.