Quote:
Originally Posted by Architype
If the border were farther south Vancouver would no doubt be sprawling for miles to the south. Even Seattle has some restrictions because of the ocean and the lakes, so it sprawls north-south.
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But that assumes that Vancouver would still exist as Canada's major Pacific metropolis were the border further south.
You have to look back at why Vancouver came into being and then consider what would have happened with a more southerly border: would Vancouver have even come into existence or would the forces that made Vancouver fix on some other location instead?
Just consider the effect of a border along the 48th at the other end: it would have made establishing a railway west of Thunder Bay a good deal easier since Lake of the Woods and its south shore would be entirely in Canada so the route that was later used by the Canadian Northern following what is now Hwy 11 would have been available. We probably would have had a functioning Thunder Bay to Winnipeg railway in existence several years earlier, meaning settlement on the Prairies could have started in earnest about a decade earlier than it did.