Great Lakes Cities

[niwell]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

T
If you're focused on the <20% of the built form that was built before 1940, even then I wouldn't say cities in Ontario have much in common with their American counterparts. American cities have better, more exuberant skyscrapers and historic commercial buildings. There was practically no influence from the City Beautiful movement, whereas this defines the Midwest. The street grid in an Ontario city is kind of basic and utilitarian, without the massive diagonal boulevards radiating out from downtown. In most cases, they weren't even planned centrally; Toronto built streets ward by ward and it was only during the automobile age of the 1920s that city planners connected them with doglegs and widened them to form arterials.

Older parts of Hamilton and especially Toronto are also a lot more tightly packed than their Great Lakes American counterparts. While it's not the rowhousing of the East Coast the lots tend to be very narrow. Less speculatively built housing and next to no loss-leader streetcar suburbs which is basically the same reason we don't have much City Beautiful stuff.

Pittsburgh is the closest analogue in that respect (very different in others), though in that case likely stems from geography.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

If our categorizations were broad, like Latin America vs. English-speaking North America, then, sure, Toronto can be lumped in with Erie, PA. But if we're making distinctions between "Eastern Great Lakes", "Western Great Lakes", "Northeast", and "Appalachia", then I think the cities of a totally different country probably merit their own category for obvious reasons.

I'd posit that Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, etc. fit a hell of a lot better into a regional categorization bucket with upstate NY than they fit into a bucket with say, anything in Ontario north of Sudbury (i.e., the vast majority of Ontario).

There's obviously significant differences within the large geographical region, but there is absolutely zero argument to be had that Hamilton and Toronto are somehow not Eastern Great Lakes cities. Buffalo, Erie, and Rochester, etc. are too. And speaking of Rochester (of the Northeast US)... it's way more regionally akin to Toronto than it is to Pittsburgh (also of the Northeast US)... yet we can confidently still group them in the same greater US region (Northeast) with each other.

I'm just talking geography here, not political lines on a map, so no, I do not think that cities of different countries need to have their own distinct category given that the category is quite broad to begin with. I don't see any major glaring need to break up 'Eastern Great Lakes' into 'Eastern Great Lakes - Canada" & 'Eastern Great Lakes - US", but have at it if need be.

[iheartthed]

The area bounded by the Appalachians, Ohio River, Mississippi River, and Canadian border (plus St. Louis) seems pretty clearly to belong to a region. This area was annexed into the U.S. together at the end of the Revolutionary War, it's the heart of industrial America, and the cities in this region grew mostly in parallel. If the Appalachians had been a state border instead of having territory west claimed by the eastern states, this would almost certainly be its own official census region.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by pj3000

I'd posit that Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, etc. fit a hell of a lot better into a regional categorization bucket with upstate NY than they fit into a bucket with say, anything in Ontario north of Sudbury (i.e., the vast majority of Ontario).

Based off climate and ecosystems, sure, but culturally, no.

Northern Ontario doesn't exist independently of Southern Ontario, and even if it's a vast territory, people do travel south from Timmins, Kapuskasing, wherever to Southern Ontario pretty often. They have family there, they lived there for a period of their life, and everybody in Ontario grew up with some of the same things: the same laws, the same education system, the same cultural institutions, the same chain stores, etc. This is why national boundaries matter.

On the other hand, most people in Southern Ontario don't have much exposure to upstate New York beyond border towns like Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Watertown. If they've driven past those towns, they're probably going to NYC without stopping. If they don't even know about each other, how can they feel a deep kinship?

And speaking of Rochester (of the Northeast US)... it's way more regionally akin to Toronto than it is to Pittsburgh (also of the Northeast US)

Apart from being on Lake Ontario and having the same weather, what does Rochester have in common with Toronto?

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The area bounded by the Appalachians, Ohio River, Mississippi River, and Canadian border (plus St. Louis) seems pretty clearly to belong to a region. This area was annexed into the U.S. together at the end of the Revolutionary War, it's the heart of industrial America, and the cities in this region grew mostly in parallel. If the Appalachians had been a state border instead of having territory west claimed by the eastern states, this would almost certainly be its own official census region.

I don't know about this... I mean, you can slice and dice things up in all sorts of ways to find common attributes. I just have a difficult time buying that Pittsburgh, Buffalo, St. Louis, and Minneapolis all clearly belong to the same region.

Just massive differences in geographic regions, topographies, ages and early histories, connections, industries, etc.

Attempting to group all of the towns of

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Based off climate and ecosystems, sure, but culturally, no.

Northern Ontario doesn't exist independently of Southern Ontario, and even if it's a vast territory, people do travel south from Timmins, Kapuskasing, wherever to Southern Ontario pretty often. They have family there, they lived there for a period of their life, and everybody in Ontario grew up with some of the same things: the same laws, the same education system, the same cultural institutions, the same chain stores, etc. This is why national boundaries matter.

On the other hand, most people in Southern Ontario don't have much exposure to upstate New York beyond border towns like Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Watertown. If they've driven past those towns, they're probably going to NYC without stopping. If they don't even know about each other, how can they feel a deep kinship?

I'm not talking culturally; like I said I'm talking regional geography. And I never claimed anything about feeling a "deep kinship".

Though I have a very hard time believing that most Torontonians and southern Ontarians these days aren't more in tune with the northeastern US than they are with Timmins, Kapuskasing, or most other tiny locales in northern Ontario. As I'm sure you're aware, there's barely anyone up there, man. And you just mentioned it yourself... Southern Ontarians travel to NYC... many, many do quite often... because it's a major city that's very accessible to them... very accessible because it's in the same region!

So I'll ask you, are they also frequently traveling to Timmins and Kapuskasing in the same large numbers?

Of course there are going to be common cultural/governmental/etc. ties with their fellow Ontarians, that's going to hold true for any state/province/nation. We can talk media, chain stores, etc. too... no doubt that there are those common connections. But I grew up going to Loblaws too and I watched CHCH, citytv, CBC, CKCO... jeez I think Erie's PBS station is still broadcast in London and other parts of SW Ontario, and I'm sure Buffalo's and Rochester's networks are what one would mainly watch in Ontario as far as American stations go. So to pretend the border is some Iron Curtain that blocks off all regional cultural influence is just silly. But I was never talking about shared cultural attributes anyway, just regional geography.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Apart from being on Lake Ontario and having the same weather, what does Rochester have in common with Toronto?

I'm really not concerned with anything else other than the fact that they are both Eastern Great Lakes cities (that are less than 100 miles away from each other).. meaning cities in the same geographic region. I'm not trying to prove that Rochester is just like Toronto or anything like that.

[Nouvellecosse]

Being close geographically does not make two places part of the same region. Nor does attracting people from other regions due to being a business or tourist draw. Virginia is often referred to as the northern boundary of the US southeast which would place Arlington and NE cities like DC and Baltimore in different regions. And they're a lot closer together than Toronto and NYC. The main issue is, the regions of NA are not strictly defined by physical geography as there's always an element of human geography mixed in. An element that is often of significant importance to the point of equaling the physical geography. Simply choosing to ignore important factors that define and differentiate regions does not make those factors cease to exist.

[pj3000]

Guys, I’ve just been saying that Buffalo, Rochester, Toronto, Hamilton, and others are Eastern Great Lakes cities.

And yes, they are in that same general geographic region. I just can’t see how you can argue with that.

We’re commenting in the Great Lakes Cities thread for chrissakes.

But maybe we need two threads now since they’re such separate regions, since based on your comments, I’m concerned about your ability to relate to cities on the other side of the line.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Guys, I’ve just been saying that Buffalo, Rochester, Toronto, Hamilton, and others are Eastern Great Lakes cities.

And yes, they are in that same general geographic region. I just can’t see how you can argue with that.

So this whole time you were arguing with me, it's because you think of "regions" in purely physical terms? As in, two places that are closer on a map?

I mean, yeah, you can't argue with the fact that Toronto is an "Eastern Great Lakes" city, because Lake Ontario is the easternmost Great Lake and Toronto is on it. And so is Rochester. That's objectively true, but it's also extremely boring and pedantic.

When the rest of us talk about "regions", I think we're diving a little deeper than just two places that happen to be close to one another as the crow flies.

[Docere]

The resources of Northern Ontario were key to Toronto's rise. Toronto became the largest stock exchange in Canada in the 1930s due to mineral wealth of Northern Ontario. In fact in a 1937 issue of Time Magazine the president of the Toronto Stock Exchange was picture on the front cover.

https://time.com/archive/6756854/business-miners-mart/

Northern Ontario is very much a part of Ontario, though as the hinterland there's a sense that it's treated as an internal colony.

[pj3000]

^^ check the thread. See mrnyc’s post and my reply.

Eastern Great Lakes cities. Nothing changed.

Broad geographic regions of incredibly vast nations display great variety. That’s how Portland ME and Pittsburgh PA can both be in thenNortheast US. And then we can break it down further from there. I disagree that it’s boring and pedantic; I think it’s informative in understanding the details that tie places together.

And once we go well down the line from a macroregion level, we can break it down in this case to Eastern Great Lakes. And yeah, once we zoom in closer from that, we’re going to turn up the intra-subregional characteristics/differences… of which national boundaries will play a role. I get that.

But let’s not pretend that southern Ontario and US counterpart cities on the other side of the line are somehow so different. There’s significantly more apparent difference between Buffalo and Boston than there is between Buffalo and Hamilton for instance.

Though having grown up in this broad region with next door neighbors from Guelph and St. Catherines, and an uncle from Brampton, I fully appreciate the cultural distinctions that exist.

[Steely Dan]

Culturally, they might be as divergent as Pyongyang and Paris, but I will never get over how similar Milwaukee and Buffalo look on streetview.

Brothers from another great lake mother.

HOWEVER, the former is western great lakes and the latter is eastern great lakes, so I clearly need to make an appointment for the eye doctor.

The immutable laws of nature do not allow them to share such close visual similarity.

[Wigs]

Milwaukee and Buffalo: bridging the Western and Eastern Great Lakes regions together

[iheartthed]

I would imagine that Buffalo is way more similar to Milwaukee than it is to Boston or New York City...

The dots in the plot under the spoiler represents all U.S. cities that have ever achieved +500k in population by the census year that they first registered 100k in population. I color coded it by region. I defined the Central East as all of the cities north of the Ohio River and west of the Appalachians but within the eastern time zone. The Central West are those cities in the central time zone as far south as Missouri.

Big cities within a geo-cultural region tended to reach their first 100k in population within 50 years of their regional neighbors. Nearly all of the cities in the Central East and Central West reached their first 100k between 1850 and 1900 (10 out of 12 cities). And no other region had more than one city reach 100k in the period of time that the central cities were maturing.

[ssiguy]

I never would consider Ottawa or Montreal part of the Great Lake region and nor would I any part of Indiana save the Gary area.

The entire Great Lakes area is very unique not only in NA but really anywhere in the world. How many other places on this planet can you name that have large port cities this far inland? How many are on lakes that are the size of some European countries? How many inland areas have hundreds of beaches and beach towns? How many inland cities have waterfronts and beaches?

Whether you love the GL region or not, there is no denying the fact that it really is a one-of-a-kind area and you can travel the globe and never find another region like it.

[Crawford]

I'd say Buffalo and Milwaukee are culturally much more alike than different.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I never would consider Ottawa or Montreal part of the Great Lake region and nor would I any part of Indiana save the Gary area.

The entire Great Lakes area is very unique not only in NA but really anywhere in the world. How many other places on this planet can you name that have large port cities this far inland? How many are on lakes that are the size of some European countries? How many inland areas have hundreds of beaches and beach towns? How many inland cities have waterfronts and beaches?

Whether you love the GL region or not, there is no denying the fact that it really is a one-of-a-kind area and you can travel the globe and never find another region like it.

Yes, truly unique and amazing. Massive interconnected freshwater inland seas that flow into the ocean… nothing like them on Earth

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I never would consider Ottawa or Montreal part of the Great Lake region and nor would I any part of Indiana save the Gary area.

Montreal's waterfront has a surprisingly industrial character when you approach it from the south. It make a big deal out of trying to portray it as a singular place but the docks and bridges make it looks like an American lakes port or river city.

Whether you love the GL region or not, there is no denying the fact that it really is a one-of-a-kind area and you can travel the globe and never find another region like it.

Most of the ships on the Great Lakes don't approach the size of modern ocean-going tankers and container ships. Some are confined to the lakes and can't fit through the locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The Mississippi River network and Intercoastal Waterways are also completely unique to the United States. The two water networks + all of the double-stack railroad trackage are a big reason why the U.S. economy dominates the globe. It's just way cheaper to transport raw and finished goods here than in Europe or any comparable large land mass. We'll never need anything like the giant tunnels u/c beneath The Alps or in Japan and China. It's unlikely that India and China will ever be linked by a direct railroad, let alone one that permits double-stacked containers.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by pj3000

^^ check the thread. See mrnyc’s post and my reply.

Eastern Great Lakes cities. Nothing changed.

Broad geographic regions of incredibly vast nations display great variety. That’s how Portland ME and Pittsburgh PA can both be in thenNortheast US. And then we can break it down further from there. I disagree that it’s boring and pedantic; I think it’s informative in understanding the details that tie places together.

And once we go well down the line from a macroregion level, we can break it down in this case to Eastern Great Lakes. And yeah, once we zoom in closer from that, we’re going to turn up the intra-subregional characteristics/differences… of which national boundaries will play a role. I get that.

But let’s not pretend that southern Ontario and US counterpart cities on the other side of the line are somehow so different. There’s significantly more apparent difference between Buffalo and Boston than there is between Buffalo and Hamilton for instance.

Though having grown up in this broad region with next door neighbors from Guelph and St. Catherines, and an uncle from Brampton, I fully appreciate the cultural distinctions that exist.

In the grand scheme of things, sure, they're probably more alike than different. We can of course get endlessly pedantic about the differences between various regions and sub-regions; but, even without getting pedantic, there's a good argument to be made that the border is a more significant regional signifier than being Great Lakes vs. non-Great Lakes.

At least as far as the cities go, when it comes to urban development patterns, demographics, culture, politics, etc. those on the Ontario side of the border probably have more in common with Vancouver or Montreal or Halifax than they do with any of the cities on the south side of the lake. This isn't a dig at those cities either; the border is just a much harder line than is being given credit for - and one that has grown much starker in recent decades (the 70s-90s were probably the peak of cross-border similarities & relationships, with things gradually diverging since).

[The North One]

Originally Posted by pj3000

But let’s not pretend that southern Ontario and US counterpart cities on the other side of the line are somehow so different. There’s significantly more apparent difference between Buffalo and Boston than there is between Buffalo and Hamilton for instance.

Maybe it's because I live in a border region but honestly Ohio feels more foreign to me than Ontario.