Canadian cities American counterparts

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I don't mean that in a bad way. Both downtowns just have a lot of views like this and this and this and this - the building stock, colour palette, and street layout are a pretty close match (certainly closer than Halifax/Boston). They share a lot of similar modern architecture as well (from the outside, the RenCen looks a lot like two of the towers at Portage/Main, replicated a few times and placed at the equivalent of The Forks rather than in the middle of the historic core). Both cities are also rooted in the seigneurial system of land division and street grids.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I don't mean that in a bad way. Both downtowns just have a lot of views like this and this and this and this - the building stock, colour palette, and street layout are a pretty close match (certainly closer than Halifax/Boston). They share a lot of similar modern architecture as well (from the outside, the RenCen looks a lot like two of the towers at Portage/Main, replicated a few times and placed at the equivalent of The Forks rather than in the middle of the historic core). Both cities are also rooted in the seigneurial system of land division and street grids.

I was joking of course.

I knew you meant no offence, but it was easy to see how some Winnipeggers might become quite indignant over this (perceived) character assassination.

I've been around SSP long enough to know how things work. I just saw an opening and pounced.

There is at least one similarity between Winnipeg and Detroit - they both had famous riots (1919 vs 1968). At least Winnipeg recovered from theirs...…..

[Architype]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Yes, I have thought that too. Moncton is bigger though.

Personally I think the NB cities all have good analogues in Maine.

Saint John = Portland
Moncton = Bangor
Fredericton = Augusta

They actually seem to be quite comparable in size, and both have rivers, both are hubs cities to some degree, and both are about the same distance from the coast.

● Bangor Metro Area 152,284
● Greater Moncton 144,810 (2016)

Bangor may have a more impressive older building stock.

Bangor Maine:1 https://goo.gl/maps/evmMHxjJg2AQcHHu6
2 https://goo.gl/maps/QQGJSBNYJMJxyM1d7
3 https://goo.gl/maps/5VAYNfNu2T215nBu5
4 https://goo.gl/maps/adrFUG1Mfbkwmc1w7
They also have Stephen King's House: https://goo.gl/maps/GCK8s9Uf6jZkXQDH9

Moncton NB: https://goo.gl/maps/9pc6bYWaro7rmC648

[north 42]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The similarities between Ann Arbour Michigan and London Ontario are really quite striking.

Both were founded at almost exactly the same time {1820s} and have remained comparable in size since that time. Both were considered old wealth centres and were decidedly WASP for the first 170 years of their existence. Each one enjoys large inner city neighbourhoods of beautiful old architecture on leafy streets. Each one has a violent crime rate consistently below their respective national averages.

Both are on secondary river routes which are both not really navigable and both are inland cities despite being in the Great Lakes area. The cities are home to 2 old and elite universities both backed up by huge medical research. Both are overwhelmingly white collar which is fairly unique as neither is a capitol city. Neither city has an true urban freeway. Both are packed with many urban parks and especially along their riverfront and each enjoys a constant built urban form around it's downtown. They even have the same nicknames.............London is The Forest City and Ann Arbour is The Tree City. They have nearly identical climates.

I can kind of see some similarities, but I’ve been to both cities many times, and don’t really think they are that similar. London is larger and more of a regional centre, while AA is a satellite city in the Greater Detroit area that feels like a college town.
London is a lot more rough around the edges as well, especially in the DT and east side, and has a much more industrial feel than AA.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Architype

They actually seem to be quite comparable in size, and both have rivers, both are hubs cities to some degree, and both are about the same distance from the coast.

And a drive down the Penobscot River from Bangor will get you to Acadia National Park, and a drive down the Petitcodiac River from Moncton will get you to Fundy National Park.

[zoomer]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

What do people think of a comparison between Victoria and Madison Wisconsin? Forgetting the climate differences, both cities have a similar built form, are surrounded by water and make excellent use of their waterfronts, and have extremely dense, mid-rise downtown cores. I hadn't thought of it until just now. Sorry if it has already been mentioned.


For those unfamiliar with Madison, here is an image of their downtown...


https://www.inc.com/jeff-barrett/why...ther-city.html

I’ve never heard that comparison before and I will say Madison is a lot better looking than I thought. Other than both cities having prominent legislative buildings, relatively dense downtowns facing the water and the lack of significant high rises, I don’t see too many other similarities. Madison’s buildings are more blocky and on a larger scale even for mid-rises, while Victoria is a jumble of smaller, finer grain buildings for the most part. Also Madison seems to be dominated by a building boom that occurred from the 1970’s to early 2000’s?

I haven’t travelled to the States much, and there isn’t really an obvious or consistent American comparison. Some folks will same Portland Oregon. Did a Google search and this one came up a few times; for example this reply to what Canadian city is like Portland on Reddit:

“ I think I’d pick Victoria. Victoria is only a bit more than half the size of Portland, and has the strongest British flavour compared to other Canadian cities, which is very different from Portland. But if you’re looking for an intellectually equal feel, Victoria is probably the closest match. It’s not a very close match, just that if you enjoy cultural things in Portland, Victoria has plenty of those. Portland is known as the “city of roses”, Victoria as the “city of gardens”; both cities are very green in every sense of the word. Victoria is also the city of retirees (most people over 65 in Canada), so it’s not as young as Portland — and yet, it’s always felt to me like there were plenty of young people there as well — apparently an old saying agrees since it claims Victoria is for “the newly wed and the nearly dead”. Victoria has several colleges and universities, and a burgeoning high tech sector, so they have that in common. Both are LGBTQI-friendly. Ethnically, Victoria is a bit more white than Portland but does have about 20% visible minorities. The people in Victoria are IMO extremely friendly, and not in a huge hurry like everyone in Vancouver — traffic stops for pedestrians whether they cross at a crosswalk or not, and everybody will help somebody who’s lost. And that’s not just because tourism is such a big deal. Victoria is eminently “walkable”, but has good public transportation, which seems true to me about Portand as well. Portland also felt very relaxed and friendly to me. Victoria is odd in a very different way from Portland, but it is odd.

I think cities elsewhere in Canada might match better in size, but you won’t get the same climate and ecology, and definitely not the oddness. But I should also add that I am most familiar with Ontario and BC, not other provinces.”

[Razor]

re: regarding some of the New England cities compared to Canadian Maritime cities.
I'm really unfamiliar, so out of curiosity is the Celtic influence just as strong stateside as it is in saay Nova Scotia?..How about Acadians both sides of the border?

[Hali87]

The impression I get is that New England is broadly more WASP-English originally, with less initial Celtic influence. The Celtic influences there seem to lean more Irish whereas in NS and PEI they're more Scottish. Eastern Maine seems to have residual Acadian influences (a lot of French place names, etc, I don't think many people there regularly speak French) but most of the "descended from French Canadians" population in New England is more closely tied to Quebec, I think.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Razor

re: regarding some of the New England cities compared to Canadian Maritime cities.
I'm really unfamiliar, so out of curiosity is the Celtic influence just as strong stateside as it is in saay Nova Scotia?..How about Acadians both sides of the border?

There are only a few isolated parts of the Maritimes in which there is ay significant overlap in architectural style and culture. This is mostly because massive settlement in the Maritimes didn't really occur until after American independence.

- New England planters arrived in the Annapolis Valley before the revolution and brought their culture and architecture with them.

- Elsewhere, Loyalists imported American style with them when they settled in Charlotte County NB and along the Fundy coast.

- The Acadians had little impact on New England because, except for northern Maine, they assimilated quickly.

- As for the Irish diaspora arising from the potato famine, this impacted the Maritimes and New England equally.

- Otherwise, the bulk of Maritime settlement was from the west country of England and Scotland, arriving in the early 1800s, a couple of generations after the American revolution.

The overlap isn't that great really.

[svlt]

Originally Posted by seaJ

This is interesting to me as a long term resident of Seattle. I had the same experience but in the opposite direction. I had heard so much about Vancouver so when i first went i had high expectations. What i found was a beautiful downtown area and great views but IMO it lacked the homegrown cultural feel of Seattle (and Portland for that matter) While Vancouver had the "looks" down it didn't seem to have much of a vibrant local culture. Being in my 20's at the time i was looking for music venues, coffee shops, record stores etc which Seattle had in spades.
Subsequent trips led me looking outside the downtown core of Vancouver for neighborhoods that had a more local feel, ie Commercial Drive, Kitsilano and now more recently East Van, but still they didn't seem nearly as cool as the neighborhoods surrounding downtown Seattle.

For me, Vancouver really shines downtown and has some nice surrounding areas, while Seattle shines in its neighborhoods with a pretty nice downtown. Both of these cities have changed so much in recent years its hard to say what will be in the future.

These are all interesting observations. As a long time Vancouver resident, I really wanted to love Seattle. There are many reasons including career and family that I need to stay in Vancouver, but as great of a city as it is, it's missing a few of the things that appeal to me in a place to live - a great deal of urbanity and density for starters, and being a truly major metropolitan area. I had hoped that Seattle would help fill that gap and I would have the luxury of having the best of both worlds, by being quite a bit larger than Vancouver and home to several giants in Fortune 500 companies. I wasn't expecting New York or Seoul in my backyard, but at least kind of a mini Toronto or SF.

But it really isn't quite it, and I travel there for pleasure 2-3 times a year before the pandemic just on a quick weekend overnight jaunt. I feel like living in Vancouver, I already get most of what I can from Seattle. Much of the nature, beaches and parks are similar, and I think I prefer what I can do in the outdoors in Vancouver. The vista is different and obviously well worth seeing as a tourist but Vancouver already fills out the aesthetics checkbox in spades. The dining in Vancouver is generally better and I've eaten out a lot in Seattle. Seattle has the sports teams and the major concerts (many of whom are making the detour to Vancouver anyway) and much better museums and art galleries. Vancouver's got the better lifestyle.

Still, with a Nexus pass, I do think it's the best of both worlds to be able to access both these cities. It's a great corner of the world to be in.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Hali87

The impression I get is that New England is broadly more WASP-English originally, with less initial Celtic influence. The Celtic influences there seem to lean more Irish whereas in NS and PEI they're more Scottish. Eastern Maine seems to have residual Acadian influences (a lot of French place names, etc, I don't think many people there regularly speak French) but most of the "descended from French Canadians" population in New England is more closely tied to Quebec, I think.

Thanks for the explanation.Ditto for you Moncton..It just seems to me that the Celtic influence is stronger and more apparent here in our maritimes..Especially in the music.

[Hali87]

There are a few Boston-area bands like Dropkick Murphys that are very Celtic-influenced (and sound like something that could have come out of Atlantic Canada in that era) but other than that I'm not really sure what the live/local music is like in other parts of New England these days.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Hali87

The impression I get is that New England is broadly more WASP-English originally, with less initial Celtic influence. The Celtic influences there seem to lean more Irish whereas in NS and PEI they're more Scottish. Eastern Maine seems to have residual Acadian influences (a lot of French place names, etc, I don't think many people there regularly speak French) but most of the "descended from French Canadians" population in New England is more closely tied to Quebec, I think.

That is correct. Though you do find Acadiens throughout New England too, the population there that is descended from Canadian francophones reflects the fact that Quebec's population is much larger.

The one exception is far northern Maine (around Madawaska across from Edmundston). There the population is a more balanced mix between Québécois and Acadiens.

This is also an area with a much larger share of people who still speak French.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

The impression I get is that New England is broadly more WASP-English originally, with less initial Celtic influence. The Celtic influences there seem to lean more Irish whereas in NS and PEI they're more Scottish. Eastern Maine seems to have residual Acadian influences (a lot of French place names, etc, I don't think many people there regularly speak French) but most of the "descended from French Canadians" population in New England is more closely tied to Quebec, I think.

Even the English settlement in the Maritimes was different. There weren't the same dominant and direct Pilgrim migrations of religious groups (some Acadians were Huguenots, also religious minorities, but I don't think that had the same puritan flavour and by 1713 they were under British rule and what they wanted didn't matter much anymore). There were lots of English settlers but they were generally chosen by the British government to populate the area and many British officers and politicians were posted in the region. I would guess that the direct power structures transferred over more completely. By the time the British were really ruling over NS in the mid-1700's and later, and NS was a functional colony with its own industry and establishment, it was effectively much, much closer to UK control than Massachusetts was in the 1600's.

Furthermore a big chunk of the English-seeming group in NS is descendant from foreign protestants, Swiss and Germans.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

For those unfamiliar with Madison, here is an image of their downtown...


https://www.inc.com/jeff-barrett/why...ther-city.html

My first thought when looking at this was Kingston. In many ways it also looks like a hybrid of the three main NB cities. I could kind of see Victoria as well, although Madison looks a bit "blockier", for lack of a better word. Flat, wide buildings of that scale are not something I really associate with BC.

[Docere]

Sometimes see Halifax/Boston and Winnipeg/Chicago - but these are quite the stretch.

[Denscity]

So for Vancouver is it San Francisco Seattle or Los Angeles?
I wanna say San Fran.

[phone]

Vancouver = Vancouver WA
Victoria = Lake Havasu City, AZ
Calgary = Abilene TX
Edmonton = Fairbanks AK
Saskatoon = Williston ND
Regina = Lincoln NE
Winnipeg = Davenport IA
Toronto = Atlanta GA
Ottawa = Harrisburg PA
Hamilton = Gary IN
Montreal = Worcester MA
Quebec City = NO EQUIVALENT
Moncton = Baton Rouge LA
Halifax = Wilmington NC
St. John's = Dededo, Guam

[MolsonExport]

Hamilton = Gary IN
Montreal = Worcester MA

really? Montreal doesn't really have a peer, and if it does, it is not a third-rate place that almost nobody has heard of. And Hamilton, while being rough at the edges, is nowhere near the place of utter despair that Gary is. Have you been to Montreal and Hamilton?

I am thinking that your list is in jest, as there is a lot of random connections being listed.

[phone]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

really? Montreal doesn't really have a peer, and if it does, it is not a third-rate place that almost nobody has heard of. And Hamilton, while being rough at the edges, is nowhere near the place of utter despair that Gary is. Have you been to Montreal and Hamilton?

I am thinking that your list is in jest, as there is a lot of random connections being listed.

I have been to Montreal but not Worcester, and I have been to Gary but not Hamilton (other than the QEW). But yeah it's basically in jest, sort of turning the comparison of Canadian cities to (often much larger) American hubs on its head. Comparing Halifax to Boston seems about as accurate as comparing Montreal to some second or third rate American city a quarter of its size.

Mainly I was just pointing out how futile these comparisons end up being. It's fun to draw comparisons but they will inevitably come up short.

That said, I did try to pick comparisons that had at least a thread of (perhaps churlish) commonality, if not for any other reason than to draw attention to all the other flaws in the comparison.