What would Vancouver be if the Border wasn't at the 49th Parallel

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by GrahamH

I doubt it. Downtown Vancouver would probably be in the same place due to the land treaty between John Deighton and Van Horn during construction of the CP Rail. Also, Vancouver's natural port is better than anything near to White Rock.

I bet you're right in a way though. Metro Vancouver might have a much larger population, therefore a larger footprint if we weren't hemmed in by the border.

CP Rail was the late 1800s. The treaty of Oregon took place decades earlier, which decided the border location. There would be little or no reason to have a major hub where Vancouver is located now if the border was about 75 km further south.

[GrahamH]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

CP Rail was the late 1800s. The treaty of Oregon took place decades earlier, which decided the border location. There would be little or no reason to have a major hub where Vancouver is located now if the border was about 75 km further south.

But if the choice was between Vancouver and White Rock, it would still be Vancouver simply due to geographical advantages, regardless of the border.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

As an aside, poster Dave2 linked a 1952 Vancouver Sun article from another thread, which included this contemplated tidbit from the then Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...=1073%2C130430

Interesting piece and it's somehow funny how back then people though that 1.5 million people will completely deplete Lower Mainland of its space and resources. I guess back then they couldn't really foresee all the high-rise condo living that took off decades later...

[vansky]

Originally Posted by GrahamH

I doubt it. Downtown Vancouver would probably be in the same place due to the land treaty between John Deighton and Van Horn during construction of the CP Rail. Also, Vancouver's natural port is better than anything near to White Rock.

I bet you're right in a way though. Metro Vancouver might have a much larger population, therefore a larger footprint if we weren't hemmed in by the border.

exactly, from west van to chilliwack, down south to bellingham, it's around 6000km2, it would've been an area of a megacity...the area is more like los angeles, tokyo or shanghai...more imporantly, we'd have more land for development.

[Blake]

48th parallel. Not much changes in this scenario. Vancouver as a city is relatively unchanged, however you would see more development and sprawl further down the 1-5 corridor connecting the region to Bellingham. In addition to Bellingham, cities like Ferndale, Blaine, Lynden etc would probably absorb a few hundred thousand more residents, likely at the expense of the some of the growth that's taken place in the Fraser Valley.

50th parallel. Alot changes. Vancouver is now an American city, with a different development pattern, different demographics and different geographic significance. There is no way it even comes close to being the city it is today. If Seattle and Vancouver are in the same country, more people would live in Seattle due to geography. I would guess Seattle adds at least 1M -1.5M residents at the expense of Metro Vancouver, and Vancouver would be known as a remote, blue collar port city.

What interests me even more is how this effects other major Western Canadian cities - specifically Kamloops, Victoria (assuming Van Island is still part of Canada) and Calgary. Where do all the Canadians move who seek the SW BC climate? Where do the influx of Asian immigrants now choose to locate?

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by Derek

I don't think having hundreds of cargo ships navigating ~90 miles/145 KMs of the Columbia each month is ideal.



Vancouver, WA is far from the coast. Sure, it's on a major river, but it's too far inland to be a practical port city.

You're assuming it would've developed the same way if it were part of Canada. It would be much bigger and more important than it is as a Portland suburb. Growth towards the coast would be a given. The earliest Fraser Valley outposts (Fort Langley, New Westminster) were inland too.

I'd think Vancouver, WA would have 3+ million people by now if Columbia was the border. The main things keeping Vancouver at 2.4 million are high real estate prices caused in large part by constricted geography, and too much rain. Canadians would love to not have to choose between constant rain or frostbite.

And Vancouver may have good natural harbours but it's anything but easy to get to for ships. There's a lot of detouring around islands. If LA can have a big port, I'm sure Vancouver WA could've managed.

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by Blake

What interests me even more is how this effects other major Western Canadian cities - specifically Kamloops, Victoria (assuming Van Island is still part of Canada) and Calgary. Where do all the Canadians move who seek the SW BC climate? Where do the influx of Asian immigrants now choose to locate?

Likely you'd see Vancouver Island be significantly larger, Victoria would remain the capital, and would be 2+ million. Geographically, I have no clue how they could connect to the island, but the goal of the trans-canada railroad also would have changed.

Should the railroad ended up somewhere across from Campbell River on the island, I do wonder if we would have had a fixed island link now over the numerous islands found there.

[memememe76]

Would it still be called Vancouver? I guess it exists but I am not aware--is there a state or province that have two cities inside it that share the same name?

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Pinion

You're assuming it would've developed the same way if it were part of Canada. It would be much bigger and more important than it is as a Portland suburb. Growth towards the coast would be a given. The earliest Fraser Valley outposts (Fort Langley, New Westminster) were inland too.

I'd think Vancouver, WA would have 3+ million people by now if Columbia was the border. The main things keeping Vancouver at 2.4 million are high real estate prices caused in large part by constricted geography, and too much rain. Canadians would love to not have to choose between constant rain or frostbite.

And Vancouver may have good natural harbours but it's anything but easy to get to for ships. There's a lot of detouring around islands. If LA can have a big port, I'm sure Vancouver WA could've managed.

I don't think you understand the geography of the areas you're talking about. LA has a huge port directly on the Pacific Ocean.


Do you think Vancouver, WA would've been built closer to the coast or something? I just fail to see how a port 145 KMs upstream from the Pacific would be more feasible than having a large, accessible bay, like Seattle and Vancouver, BC. The Columbia River is very narrow with many small islands. There are cargo ships that navigate it, but I seriously doubt it could handle dozens of ships trying to navigate it every day.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by Derek

Do you think Vancouver, WA would've been built closer to the coast or something?

As I said, growth towards the coast would be a given. The earliest Fraser Valley outposts (Fort Langley, New Westminster) were inland too. LA started way in from the coast as well.

The only reason I use Vancouver WA as the starting point is because it was a Hudson's Bay Company trading post, which is a common starting point for Canadian cities. But it might become as irrelevant to the area as Fort Langley is to Vancouver in time.

This is getting strangely into "argument" territory and I'm not sure why.

[Klazu]

Hamburg in Germany is located 110km from the coast and is yet one of the biggest ports in whole Europe and world. Now I don't know how Columbia River compares to Elbe River in terms of width and depth, but it's not totally unheard of to have a large port inland.

[Blake]

I fail to see how any of this would have any significant impact on Vancouver, WA.

Saying more Canadians would choose to live there because of climate is like saying more Americans would choose to live there over Seattle (which has a virtually identical climate to Vancouver, BC) which is certainly not the case. You would probably see more growth in cities like Yakima or Spokane due to climate.

This is not even considering the argument of the viability of a large port, which is another valid argument.

[Derek]

It's not an argument, I just don't see the feasibility. If Canada owned the land where Seattle is located, I don't see how that area wouldn't be Canada's largest West Coast city given its location.


If the ports of Vancouver, WA/Portland were able to handle more cargo, the metro area would be bigger, no? Why isn't Vancouver, WA Washington's largest city?


They're talking points. I don't understand why everyone has to turn something into an argument if somebody sees differently than them. I am just trying to understand your point of view better.



Besides, this is all hypothetical speculations anyways.

[twoNeurons]

Much of the early trade went up the Fraser River... which would've ended up in Vancouver being a logical place for a city. To be completely honest, this fact alone would mean Vancouver would still be the dominant city in the region.

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

Much of the early trade went up the Fraser River... which would've ended up in Vancouver being a logical place for a city. To be completely honest, this fact alone would mean Vancouver would still be the dominant city in the region.

Not if the border was at the 50th parallel. And you can only use the river for trade purposes up to about Yale, which based on the 50th parallel, would be be in the USA.

[trofirhen]

Fortunately, none of this 50°N stuff is true. 49°N is ok, and we miss out on what Vancouver could have had if the border had been set at 48°N for sure, but look at it this way; at the actual 49°N, Vancouver has been "compressed" to take the city planning moves that it has, regarding densities, transit, and green space, (and dare I say "Vancouverism?") We are the city we are because the border is where it is. (though it does some pretty crazy things on its way out to the Pacific)

[Klazu]

I agree with trofirhen that Vancouver BC should be pretty thankful for the border being where it is, as otherwise this town would be much smaller and much more low-rise.

I have sometimes wondered to myself, what really triggered densification and high-rise living in Vancouver? What were the grounds to build West End so densely and why also the Expo area became full of recidential high-rises? Has there just always been such a high demand to live Downtown that density has been warranted or is it more because of some political decision due to limited land in Lower Mainland?

[Dado]

On Vancouver WA vs Vancouver BC (which probably wouldn't even have that name), Vancouver WA had the advantage of already being a going concern of the Northwest/Hudson's Bay companies (hence I'll call it Fort Vancouver).

Of course what really made Vancouver BC was the CPR. So we have to figure out where would a trans-Canada railway come to the coast when the coast of the Pacific Northwest north of the Columbia is Canadian.

With Fort Vancouver already in existence, the natural tendency would be to build a line to it unless there was a compelling reason not to. Rail lines were indeed built to Fort Vancouver (and Portland) in actual American history, yet neither city became a major port either.

There's clearly something about the location of Fort Vancouver that militates against it becoming a major port despite having a history with the Northwest/Hudson's Bay Companies. On the whole, I don't have any reason to think that Fort Vancouver would be much larger than it is today were it part of Canada.

By contrast, until the 1850s Seattle didn't even exist, and Vancouver didn't exist until the 1880s, though settlement began in the area in the late 1850s. Today, both are major ports with millions of inhabitants in each. There's also Tacoma south of Seattle, which is in fact a bigger port than Seattle and probably a more logical port location from an American point of view.

That in and of itself presents a bit of an interesting problem to sort out. Clearly Vancouver's importance was based on its role as Canada's major Pacific port. Yet south of the border, Seattle came to be bigger than Tacoma despite the latter's advantage of being the first major rail terminus and port in the Pacific Northwest. I think we could probably conclude that Canada's Pacific port, wherever it was, would come to be a big city.

So the question really is... Tacoma or Seattle or Vancouver? Which port location would have made the most sense for a trans-Canada railway in the 1870s or 1880s? Or is there somewhere else between them (e.g. Bellingham, Anacortes, Everett) that might have been more advantageous for a Canadian terminus (i.e. with a rail traffic orientation towards the northeast) which wasn't the case for an American one (with a rail traffic orientation towards the southeast)?

To answer this we have to put ourselves in the position of someone like Sanford Flemming or Cornelius Van Horne in the 1870s or 1880s. What combination of port locations and mountain passes works best for a rail line that is headed generally to the northeast through the mountains? Would you build a railway in the steep-walled Fraser and Thompson Canyons like the CPR was forced to do?

And that is kind of the problem: the number of suitable mountain passes in the area is quite limited.

The first one on the American side that works is Stevens Pass (~1225 m, Interstate 2) out of Everett, which still has a BNSF line running through it. The next is Snoqualmie Pass (~925 m, Interstate 90) out of Seattle, which used to have a rail line but which has since been abandoned.

One other possibility is the Skagit River Valley out of Burlington and then about halfway up Ross Lake (which is created by a dam) into a valley about 3 km east of Ross Lake and running parallel to it and which goes through Thunder, Strike, Flash and Lightening Lakes north of border to meet up with the route of the Crowsnest Highway. This pass is about 1240 m. Though higher, it has the advantage over the other two of actually heading in roughly the right direction.

All of these passes are higher than those in the Fraser-Thompson Canyons, but then the difficulty of construction there is related to how deep the canyons themselves are.


Looking at all the above, my bet would be on the area around Everett. As a port the location is quite accessible from the sea (easier than Vancouver) while also being protected and the anchorage is very deep. On the railway side it is easily accessed from the Skagit Valley to the north. If the coast north of the Columbia were in Canadian hands in the 1870s and you were charged with building a trans-Canada railway to the Pacific coast to a suitable port this location would be very appealing.

[Dave2]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

As an aside, poster Dave2 linked a 1952 Vancouver Sun article from another thread, which included this contemplated tidbit from the then Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board:



http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...=1073%2C130430

The google archive of old Vancouver Suns is worth a browse. I stumbled on this. Feb 12 1952. Premier Johnson (Liberal) removes tolls from Patullo Bridge. Surrey expected to boom. Three months later Johnson was out, as were the Liberals for the rest of the century. (How many MLAs did Surrey have? One, shared with Richmond, Delta, and part of Langley)

In other news,tolls on the Lion's Gate expected to remain until 1988! Len Norris finds humour in the illegal suite problem Bus fares to rise to 13 cents , already too high says "working girl" Kathleen Basic (They rose to 15 cents in 1954), a streetcar was robbed of $40 in dimes while the motorman and conductorette were absent (hmm).

Two streetcars had an accident at Hastings & Lillooet. Who was at fault?

Joseph C Stewert, 32, of 3404 East Twenty-Seventh? or Cecil W. Smith, 45, of 411 West Nineteenth?

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...1611%2C1703471

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by Derek

It's not an argument, I just don't see the feasibility. If Canada owned the land where Seattle is located, I don't see how that area wouldn't be Canada's largest West Coast city given its location.

A port's success is all about geography. You're not looking at this from a Canadian perspective.

Seattle would be relatively unimportant as part of Canada, just like Vancouver WA is as part of the USA.