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Originally Posted by lio45
I'm a bit surprised by that, 'cause as you pointed out, it has symbolic importance not only for the Lone Star State but also for the U.S. in general / manifest destiny.
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Manifest destiny as a concept/topic was discussed quite a bit in my history classes growing up in Canada, but a lot of it wasn't focused on the Mexican/US border side, but boundary disputes with British North America, naturally given that being the most salient for Canadians.
However, I can see the US being more aware of the history of how manifest destiny played out across all its borders -- the Mexican one, Canadian one, and even other aspects (eg. cross the sea to Pacific islands like Hawaii, and also towards the Caribbean).
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Originally Posted by Acajack
I am trying hard to think of something that would come to mind for more people worldwide than the CN Tower when it comes to Toronto.
Something vague like diversity (probably not - city demographics don't typically interest the average joe, at least not in the way we think about them) or a sports team like the Raptors?
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They do if particular cities go out of their way to portray themselves as a hotspot or cultural hub for a particular demographic, e.g. African Americans in Atlanta. Sometimes, cultural demographics lend themselves to tourism or reputation (eg. San Francisco's Chinatown having the longest history within the Chinese diaspora in N. America) though to what extent contemporary demographics matter for that vs. past demographics that already set up a reputation is hard to say.
It seems like newer demographic changes tend to take some time to filter through the general public's consciousness (e.g. people aren't aware of the Hispanic population share in Chicago relative to the African American one, because the latter seems to have a longer history both in statistical numbers until recently and in the public view; now Hispanics are Chicago's largest "minority" but this happened only a few years ago).
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV
To be fair, that random village lady probably has a nephew in Toronto
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That's something that's possibly an up-and-coming benefit to Toronto's international reputation, an underappreciated one.
If lots of people abroad have relatives in a place, it will increase the knowledge and reputation of that place abroad and in diaspora.
If knowledge of a city can pass through the grapevine and through social media connections to family ties, nowadays people in some tiny village can hear of a place and feel connected no matter if the mass media or mainstream media covers it or not.
The decentralization of media and information sources can be a boon for places that have traditionally not been (especially American or western) pop culture icons because now they don't have to wait for a few mainstream sources to get "recognition" in the rest of the world.