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This paper approaches the issue of the role of urbanization in American political development from a comparative-historical perspective. By comparing the role of urbanization in Canadian political development with that of the United States, we gain valuable new insight into the different roles cities can and do play in the erection of jurisdictional power between national and sub-national political domains. As centers of economic and political activity, cities play a crucial - but variable - role in national networks of prominence and power. Historically, this resulted in a disproportionate role for urban elites in Canadian and American national development. Given the incremental, local nature of 19th century American state formation, the current provincial-federal relationship in Canada might at first appear surprising, for example. The origins, and ultimate failure of, the American "states' rights" movement is equally surprising. The United States is both a less "urban" and more politically centralized society than Canada. Its origins, too, lie in the past. When Congress "nationalized" the near-west (trans-Appalachia), federal government took jurisdictional reign over what would be the majority of the nation's new state governments. American municipal governments were similarly subjugated to state jurisdiction, often via the Army and state guards. In Canada, city dwellers were both more powerful and their city governments were more autonomous in the scope and size of programs under their purview. In America, in sum, rural constituents exert inordinate power at the federal level via Congress, and particularly the Senate; Canadian federal government is more beholden to the provincial governments, which serve largely at the behest of their urban constituents. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]