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I think it is because Canada has less of a buy buy buy culture.
What always shocks me is the lack of online shopping in Canada. But on some level it is a good thing. Life shouldn't be always troubled by what to buy.
And population density as mentioned explain most of it. By the same logic, if you compare the US with Chinese cities, Americans don't seem to have many stores either.
I think a lot of US retailers have a tendancy to over-build. I'm in a suburb of the SF Bay area. From home, I could drive to 3 different Macys stores in less than 15 minutes. In 45 minutes, I could probably drive to at least 7 of them. So they shut a lot of stores down, other stores take their place, other stores over-build then close. I can think of at least 5 major chains this has happened with locally in the past 15 or so years.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
As a Canadian it's always surprising just how much retail there is in the U.S. compared to here. Even smaller cities of 100,000 seem to have retail similar to Canadian cities three to four times bigger.
Just look at Syracuse NY (700 k metro?) with Ottawa ON (1.3 million metro), and the retail options are reasonably comparable. In spite of the fact that Ottawa is almost twice as big.
And let's not mention how the various fast food places often seem to be at every single exit on Interstates, even in the rural stretches.
Low population, big landmass - big transportation costs, high taxes and cost of living. I think the selection we do have here is not a wide selection, but stores tend to stock quality over quantity. And people are willing to pay.
As a Canadian it's always surprising just how much retail there is in the U.S. compared to here. Even smaller cities of 100,000 seem to have retail similar to Canadian cities three to four times bigger.
Just look at Syracuse NY (700 k metro?) with Ottawa ON (1.3 million metro), and the retail options are reasonably comparable. In spite of the fact that Ottawa is almost twice as big.
And let's not mention how the various fast food places often seem to be at every single exit on Interstates, even in the rural stretches.
Ottawa is mysterious city. It may has 1.3 million, but it looks and functions like a city with 400,000, from street vibrancy to retail to transit.
This is probably why few outside Canada even knows its existence.
As a Canadian it's always surprising just how much retail there is in the U.S. compared to here. Even smaller cities of 100,000 seem to have retail similar to Canadian cities three to four times bigger.
Just look at Syracuse NY (700 k metro?) with Ottawa ON (1.3 million metro), and the retail options are reasonably comparable. In spite of the fact that Ottawa is almost twice as big.
And let's not mention how the various fast food places often seem to be at every single exit on Interstates, even in the rural stretches.
I don't find that the case crossing the border in to the US from here. Seattle has different shopping, but I have never thought they had more compared to Vancouver.
Downtown Vancouver is packed with retail. The suburbs have shopping streets and malls. Metrotown in Burnaby has over 350 stores, nothing that big in the Seattle area as far as I know. Westlake has only 130 stores and I believe that is the largest mall there??? I'm sure SAT will correct me
But malls alone are not the way to judge of course.
I can't help but wonder if someone unfamiliar with Canada will think from just reading this thread, will think Canada is hard done by when it comes to retail.
I don't know, maybe that's because it's Toronto but on the way from Niagara Falls to Toronto, I see just as many strip malls and shopping centres along the QEW as I would here.
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