If the US and Canada had been one nation, would Toronto or Montreal still be big?

[Qubert]

So this is an interesting alt-history question I've always had:

If either A) The American revolution had spread to Canada or B) The Revolution was crushed and all of North America would evolve into a British Dominion then commonwealth nation, would Toronto or Montreal be the cities they are today?

The reason this question intrigues me so much is that we always talk about how weather and geography affect settlement patterns and one has to ask if all of North America was one political entity what would be the basis of having two major great lakes mega cities (Chicago and Toronto) or in having a major inland port along the St Laurence (Montreal)?
IMHO I think Toronto would still have emerged as a major hub due to it's resource rich Ontario hinterland, but Montreal might be more questionable. With the St Laurence no longer outside American hands I can see Montreal being more of a provincial mid-sized city akin to a St Louis or Nashville first being a manufacturing hub then later transitioning to a cultural one. Toronto would be a manufacturing powerhouse like a Cleveland or Detroit, and would also probably have vastly different demographics with it becoming a magent for the Great Migration of African-Americans northward as well as Latino and Jewish immigration. By the mid twentieth century Toronto would be affected by White Flight and suburbanization and maybe wouldn't quite be as much of a draw as it is today since "Canadians" can basically live in Arizona or Florida as they so wish.

In other words, Toronto would be another rust belt city and Montreal would become a kinda cold-weather New Orleans. What do you think would have occurred?

[Crawford]

No way. The portion of this fantasy U.S. in Canada would have a fraction of Canada's present population, for obvious climate, logistical and immigration policy reasons.

[Steely Dan]

Ya never know.

A combined US/Canada might have meant that the Erie canal never got off the ground.

Maybe Montreal is even larger than it currently is and New York City is smaller.

[Wigs]

All of Canada's current major cities would be Toledo sized except for Montreal.

[llamaorama]

Hard to say.

I do think Canada's natural resources would have still been a major economic attraction. So Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton would still be major cities and perhaps even bigger. There would probably be a railroad connecting Alaska with the rest of the country, and perhaps a 4-lane interstate highway. Winnipeg would also be more significant if it had a bigger geographic hinterland not spliced by the border.

But I also like the prediction that Ontario would have become rust belt and stagnated. Toronto would probably be like a second Cleveland or Buffalo, Ottawa would be a small town or not exist, and there would be no reason for Montreal to have grown very large either. Atlantic Canada would probably be about the same.

[craigs]

A huge chunk of the population eventually decided to decamp the coldest parts of the US for warmer areas. With that same frictionless option, it's entirely possible that the populations of colder cities in Fantasy Canada, too, would have eventually moved south and west en masse.

[Hudson11]

The Canadian Maritimes might have become marginally bigger. Maybe bigger than Baltimore.

[Nouvellecosse]

Chicago, one of the largest US metros, has basically the same climate much of southern Canada. So I don't see the weather being a deterrent. And Minneapolis also exists iirc.

[Doady]

Why would Toronto become a Rust Belt city when it was not an industrial city to begin with?

[mhays]

The cold US metros have mostly had slow growth for several decades, and weather is a big reason. I'd assume the same for the Camerican cities--including immigrants largely choosing non-icy places.

[bartolo]

Originally Posted by Doady

Why would Toronto become a Rust Belt city when it was not an industrial city to begin with?

Toronto was very much an industrial city. Maybe not to the same extent as the US rust belt, but it still had a large industrial base and honestly still does.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by bartolo

Toronto was very much an industrial city. Maybe not to the same extent as the US rust belt, but it still had a large industrial base and honestly still does.

Not only that, but in this alternate universe Toronto would probably have been as heavily industrialized as nearby places across the border, boomed back when they did, and struggled when manufacturing declined. So the more appropriate question is, why would it have been different from places in the rust belt if there was never a border dividing it into a separate region?

[Doady]

Originally Posted by bartolo

Toronto was very much an industrial city. Maybe not to the same extent as the US rust belt, but it still had a large industrial base and honestly still does.

Toronto is much more of an industrial city now than it was 1950 when all those other cities started to decline.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Crawford

No way. The portion of this fantasy U.S. in Canada would have a fraction of Canada's present population, for obvious climate, logistical and immigration policy reasons.

I don't think climate has anything to do with it. There are plenty of cities with similar climates in the US to Toronto, and obviously a lot of people live there: Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Boston all have long winters and three of them are lakeside cities. So why would that change anything with Toronto's climate?

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Doady

Toronto is much more of an industrial city now than it was 1950 when all those other cities started to decline.

The thought experiment here isn't about how actual Toronto was different from actual US Great Lakes cities in 1950. Rather, it is about how a seamless continental Fantasy Canada would have developed over the centuries. Whether that Dream Dynamo developed more like actual Canada or actual America, I think it is fair to say that Toronto and other cities in that region of North America would have developed uniformly through the same processes driven by the same forces. So in that thought experiment, Toronto wouldn't have necessarily been an outlier in 1950 or any other year.

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

I don't think climate has anything to do with it. There are plenty of cities with similar climates in the US to Toronto, and obviously a lot of people live there: Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Boston all have long winters and three of them are lakeside cities. So why would that change anything with Toronto's climate?

Now name all of the major US metropolitan areas that are not in climates similar to Toronto. Hint: most of them.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by craigs

Now name all of the major US metropolitan areas that are not in climates similar to Toronto. Hint: most of them.

So what? Is Boston not as big as Houston because Sun Belt cities like Atlanta, Miami, and Nashville exist? Or is Boston not as big as Houston because of other factors, like dominating industries and municipal boundaries?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

there would be no reason for Montreal to have grown very large either.

As the fall line port city of the St. Lawrence.(Which empties the entire great lakes basin), Montreal was probably destined to be a thing by geography alone.

And as I said earlier, a combined US/Canada could have meant that the erie canal never happened, which could have in turn increased montreal's profile as a port city and diminished NYC's.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

And as I said earlier, a combined US/Canada could have meant that the erie canal never happened, which could have in turn increased montreal's profile as a port city and diminished NYC's.

The Erie Canal was completed long before the U.S. was fully settled, so in some alternate scenario where there was one nation, I don't see why something like the Erie Canal wouldn't have been built.

There were only 19 states during Erie Canal construction. And Canada was extremely sparsely settled prior to the Erie Canal's completion.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Ya never know.

A combined US/Canada might have meant that the Erie canal never got off the ground.

Maybe Montreal is even larger than it currently is and New York City is smaller.

My knee jerk reaction is that the population within the footprint of "real" Canada would across the board be way smaller in counterfactual Canada. But, as you allude there may be some interesting complexities here to consider.

Generally speaking I think Montreal would still be a major thing, whereas Toronto may be less certain. Maybe more of a Duluth scenario, an array of raw material processing ports, there.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

I don't think climate has anything to do with it. There are plenty of cities with similar climates in the US to Toronto, and obviously a lot of people live there: Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Boston all have long winters and three of them are lakeside cities. So why would that change anything with Toronto's climate?

These cities were all established and boomed long before air conditioning, the jet age and the rise of the Sunbelt. Over the last 50 years, these cities basically haven't grown much.

And Canada is even colder. Toronto slightly colder, Montreal significantly colder, Winnipeg one of the coldest cities on earth. These were the three largest cities pre-Sunbelt.

And Canada's recent growth is entirely due to some of the planet's most liberal immigration laws. Under U.S. immigration norms, this wouldn't be the case.

And something like 1/3 of Canada's population lives in Ontario, with the GTA closest to Buffalo, Rochester and Cleveland, three of the slowest growing cities in the U.S. Toronto would likely be most similar to its closest cities. It would probably be a stagnant, midsized city with a strong industrial heritage and some decent legacy industries. Rochester, more or less.