I have a personal fascination with the early Colonial settlement in North America. One thing that occurs to me when I think about a settlement in western Tennessee and what Philadelphia would be like at that time ... or London or Paris ... is that for most of History, where matters as much as when.

For example try to imagine an Italian city (like Florence or Venice) in 1600 and then imagine a settlement in Tennessee in 1800. Which is “more advanced”?

1600 Venice has a newspaper and masonry buildings hundreds of years old and marble clad cathedrals and merchant palaces and a thriving exchange and banks.

1800 Tennessee has a Blackmith (who might repair a flintlock rifle) and log cabin homes surrounded by farms and primordial forests.

This is incredibly true. A settlement in Tennessee is not only going to have the uphill battle of clearing previously untamed land, but the environment of Tennessee is completely different from that of the Old World, which means the native crops and animals are completely different.

I think "Who" plays a part, as well. I've been to both Tennessee and Florence (Firenze) and would consider the former more "advanced" since it echos my value systems. In Italy the taxes are atrocious, bribery is rampant, poverty the norm, and laws that existed for a finite use case hundreds of years ago are still on the books.

Given 1600 Firenze or 1800 Tennessee, I'd still go local. I don't fancy being poisoned and don't look good in tights, in case you didn't know.