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Vancouver: Seattle + San Francisco is pretty apt. It is a Pacific Northwest city with a lot of similar features (Pioneer Square/Gastown, ferry links to Alaska, etc.) though in terms of density, size of the downtown and cosmopolitan feel (particularly the very large Chinese population) it is like San Francisco (and also really high housing prices). San Francisco is most known for its bohemianism and for its large gay population, as is Vancouver, but Seattle is very liberal in this regard as well. But Vancouverites aspire to the "California lifestyle" than Seattleites do, given that you see palm trees in Vancouver but never in Seattle, and you see more "Mediterranean-inspired" housing, though the old housing stock is more like Seattle's. Perhaps to make things interesting, throw in Miami. Miami:Latin America and the Caribbean, Vancouver:Asia-Pacific
Calgary: Denver + Houston. Denver in terms of Rocky Mountain setting and appearance, Houston for oil industry influence.
Edmonton: A difficult one, this is in many respects the most typically "Canadian" of Canadian cities. The West Edmonton Mall draws parallels to Minneapolis, but Minneapolis is more white collar/educated than Edmonton. Nothing really fits.
Winnipeg: Sometimes compared to the Twin Cities due to geography, but while Minneapolis-St. Paul is one of the most prosperous and educated metropolitan areas in the US, Winnipeg retains a working class feel. Perhaps it can be compared with St. Paul historically the more blue collar/Catholic/"ethnic" of the Twin Cities, with Omaha, with its role of a transportation center/"Gateway to the West." Maybe Milwaukee can be thrown is its well, with its history of labor radicalism, and its Third Ward is somewhat like Winnipeg's Exchange District.
Toronto: Often compared with Chicago and more controversially, New York. The Chicago comparison is apt in terms of geography and stature as a city. The diversity of the city - and the fact that no nationality dominates - is similar to NYC. There are also parallels to Los Angeles. The Metro-burbs of North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke are an urban suburbia with similar levels of density and diversity to L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, and leads to somewhat similar polarized municipal politics between urban and suburban interests. But the pre-amalgamation City of Toronto is nothing like L.A., which is second to NYC among North American cities in population density. It has a very large downtown (like a mini-Manhattan and somewhat akin to Chicago) with a ring of urban/bohemian neighborhoods like Queen West, Little Italy, Kensington Market and the Annex just outside it. This vibe seems to be on a greater scale than Chicago but unlike NYC these are Victorian rowhouse neighborhoods - you don't have to have to go very far from downtown to find houses. But neither NYC or Chicago are cities of rowhouses, so this is where the Philadelphia comparison comes in, but the rowhouse neighborhoods are much more gentrified than Philly. The next ring of early 20th century working class neighborhoods in the west and especially east ends are semi-detached early 20th century houses that are somewhat akin to "Archie Bunker" houses in Queens.
Hamilton - The steel industry draws parallels to Pittsburgh, but also can be compared somewhat to Baltimore as a city in its own right in the shadow of its more prominent neighbor.
Ottawa: It is the national capital and obviously draws parallels to Washington, but it just lacks that big city feel. So I'll say a mix of Washington and Albany, NY.
Montreal: Its Francophone majority makes it hard to draw parallels. It does have a large university population and is filled with triplexes like Boston and like Brooklyn it has lots of Haitians, Hasidic Jews and hipsters. It's also, like NYC, very much a city of apartment dwellers, but it's more low-rise. Old Montreal is somewhat similar to New Orleans.
ThroatGuzzler, San Jose and Montreal have similar population and similar downtowns. Waterloo, are you for real? Visit San Jose before going off. I've been to both cities many times.
LOL @ San Jose and Montreal having similar downtowns. Montreal's is several times larger, and has a million times more "stuff": stores, restaurants, bars, clubs, pedestrians walking around.
Victoria: Port Townsend, Wash. for historic "British" feel in the Pacific NW, + Olympia (quaint Pacific NW capital) + Santa Barbara (West Coast retirement center and university town)
Kamloops: Spokane
Regina: Fargo in geography and scale
Saskatoon: Grand Forks?
Thunder Bay: Duluth
Windsor: Detroit
London: A small city core with a "public ivy" type university with large sprawl - perhaps a mix of Ann Arbor and Columbus, Ohio?
Kitchener-Waterloo: Reading, PA (blue collar city with large German/Mennonite population) mixed in with...?
Niagara Falls: Niagara Falls, NY + Atlantic City
Oshawa: Flint
Kingston: Burlington, VT (small city with vibrant lakefront) and maybe Charlottesville, VA (Queen's being "UVA north")
Quebec City: New Orleans would be the closest.
Fredericton: Augusta, Maine
Saint John: Portland, Maine
Moncton: Lewiston, Maine (both have large Francophone populations)
Halifax: It could have been Canada's Boston, but it's more akin to Providence, with Portland, Maine mixed in.
Daring Dirk, have you been to Dt. San Jose? Downtown San Jose is better than Dt. Montreal. I talking about core to core, not the outlying areas like Plateu and Old Montreal. Core to core. As for shops, Montreal has alot of shops downtown due to it not being malled to death and the French taste for fashions. Hopefully, Montreal would not go for Griffentown shopping development to the west of downtown because it would turn Dt. Montreal into a dead downtown like Houston's downtown. San Jose, on the other hand, had to suffer this fate, but it finally found its place as a vibrant community downtown with entertainments, restaurants, theaters, museums, university, stunning city hall/main library and lots of housing. It took San Jose 25 years to overcome this suburban mess. Montreal would be an entry to this situation if they went ahead with this development. Don't get it wrong. Dt. San Jose has shops like Target, Marshall, TJ Max, Ross and Safeway. It's just not the fashion hub.
Most important thing is San Jose has upgraded just about every big city stuffs downtown, and Montreal has only now started to work on its theater and museum expansion and improvements. They just built their library and convention center recently. Only now, Montreal has played catch up with San Jose, which has already done these 15 years ago. In other words, San Jose is ahead of Montreal in downtown revitalization by 10 years.
Don't get it wrong. Downtown Montreal is surrounded by cool neighborhoods, and Dt. SJ is not.
Kitchener-Waterloo "blue collar"? Are you kidding me? It's one of the top tech regions of the entire world.
You're right - I should have been more clear that I was comparing Kitchener and not Waterloo to Reading. While Waterloo has a high tech/university presence, Kitchener is more of a working class city.
How about Kitchener-Waterloo: Lafayette-West Lafayette, Indiana (home to the very techy Purdue University and a major high tech center).
Daring Dirk, have you been to Dt. San Jose? Downtown San Jose is better than Dt. Montreal. I talking about core to core, not the outlying areas like Plateu and Old Montreal. Core to core. As for shops, Montreal has alot of shops downtown due to it not being malled to death and the French taste for fashions. Hopefully, Montreal would not go for Griffentown shopping development to the west of downtown because it would turn Dt. Montreal into a dead downtown like Houston's downtown. San Jose, on the other hand, had to suffer this fate, but it finally found its place as a vibrant community downtown with entertainments, restaurants, theaters, museums, university, stunning city hall/main library and lots of housing. It took San Jose 25 years to overcome this suburban mess. Montreal would be an entry to this situation if they went ahead with this development. Don't get it wrong. Dt. San Jose has shops like Target, Marshall, TJ Max, Ross and Safeway. It's just not the fashion hub.
Most important thing is San Jose has upgraded just about every big city stuffs downtown, and Montreal has only now started to work on its theater and museum expansion and improvements. They just built their library and convention center recently. Only now, Montreal has played catch up with San Jose, which has already done these 15 years ago. In other words, San Jose is ahead of Montreal in downtown revitalization by 10 years.
Don't get it wrong. Downtown Montreal is surrounded by cool neighborhoods, and Dt. SJ is not.
You've officially lost all credibility. I don't know if you're trying to be serious, or if you are just a troll or gimmick poster.
Daring Dirk, get back to reality and stop thinking Dt. Montreal is better than San Jose. Where's a new city hall dt. Montreal? How about a science museum? What about the cleanliness and the safety of Dt. Montreal. There's no children museum and the new expansion of museum and theater are not done. Whom are you fooling. There's no Trader's Joe or Target in Dt. Montreal. Don't get me wrong. I like Montreal, but it's behind Dt. SJ in downtown renovations. There is still no pedestrian mall in Dt. Montreal. How about hanging out by McDonald's on St. Catherine st. without getting beaten up or robbed? Get your facts straight, blogger!
How does a new city hall make a downtown better? Don't ignore this question either. Answer it.
Montreal destroys San Jose in terms of museums. Not to mention shopping, dining, and nightlife. Where in downtown San Jose can you find a shopping street like St. Catherines, or a nightlife area like Crescent Street?
How does a children's museum make a downtown better? Yeah, me and my buddies are gonna go downtown on a Saturday night because there's a children's museum.
You talk about Trader Joes's and Target, but dt. Montreal has 1000 times more shopping than dt. San Jose. Dt. Montreal has like 5 dept. stores (REAL, upsacle dept. stores, not Target/WalMart/Zellers/KMart) and a bunch of grocery stores. So what does 1 Trader Joes and 1 Target mean?
You're a clown.
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