Fun exercise. Thread seems derailed. Doing this more for myself so don't pay much mind, but thought I'd pitch in. If I wanted to represent NA to the world as a unified continent in a visual collage of 10 places, I'd do:
1. Times Square / New York City - What list wouldn't include this?
2. Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco - Most quintessential sight in western North America
3. Hollywood Sign, Los Angeles - Historic center of the entertainment industry of the world
4. Capitol Hill, D.C. - Seat of government of the nexus of North American power
5. Mexico City - Largest metropolis in North America
6. The Strip, Las Vegas - LV is world renowned, taste aside. It's like Disneyland for adults as if it was a full city.
7. Quebec City - Iconic French Canadian city that has no analogue in the continent
8. Moraine Lake, Lake Louise - Hopelessly subjective and endlessly debatable, but for my eyes is the most beautiful single sight in the continent if I was forced to pick one
9. St. John's, NL - First English city in North America, essentially the birthplace of anglo-North America
10. Cancun / Mayan Riviera - The most popular and well known of the Mexican beach spots.
It was easy to come up with the US ones, as they are so well known and culturally relevant and significant for human society. It was hard to have to exclude Maui, Miami Beach, the Bean of Chicago etc. Their primate cities of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco really are icons to the entire planet, something no Canadian city can claim.
Canada was a bit tougher to include, and if the list didn't have to have some weights given to Canada or Mexico I think it'd be even more US centric. Quebec City and Lake Louise I feel are truly iconic in their own right without having been given slots just for the country. St. John's was good to include, Atlantic coast of Canada is fairly important to NA history. I think all three deserve to be in the top 10, but I would have a tough time including anything else from Canada without hitting another 5 or so sights in the US first.
Not an expert in Mexico but I felt giving just one city in a list that included that country did not do it justice, so threw in Cancun as the most notable around the world.
Kind of a banal list I know, pretty obvious, but I mean seeing stuff like Iqaluit, Edmonton and Detroit in a list that has to be limited to 10... really?
Maybe in a top 20 or 30.