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Better question: are the Southern United States and Canada similar to the Northeast, New England, Minnesota, & the Pacific Coast?
Ridiculous that the northern states, in their rich power and history, have to be compared. Those northern states should be the standard other regions are compared to.
New England has far greater population and global reach than the Maritimes.
Quebec nearly broke off from Canada two decades ago due to various differences, so that's not a great comparison.
The west coast and east coast of the US are global juggernauts of politics, science, business, etc. Maybe Toronto can come close, but Canada's west coast is pretty sparse. The deep south has some cutting edge stuff (Cape Canaveral) too, but I'm not sure how close it comes to the west and east coast.
Maybe one could argue that the midwest US is like Canada's midwest, but I'll leave that for midwesterners to argue.
I don't know why, but it aggravates me when the northern states are waved off as "just Canada". The northern states are massive in economy and population compared to all of Canada. It's like saying "NYC is a version of Providence". The Bos-Wash alone has 15 million more people than Canada. No hate to Canada though, it's an absolutely fantastic nation and the only other country I'd move to, I just find this whole comparison strange. Love to Canada.
Last edited by sad_hotline; 09-07-2018 at 07:07 PM..
If you had to generalize it down to a black and white answer, each state would be more like the south than Canada because we all share the same federal law, overall cultural staples, and American sensibilities.
I agree, regional differences aside, and I have spent considerable time in both Canada and the Southern states.
The demographics (Canada lacks the African-American and Latino-American cultures that play a large role in the overall US culture)..the overall vibe...the ways of the people...just feel different between the countries notwithstanding the regional differences within each country. Hard to put a finger on, but I know I have stepped back in the USA (and also I know when I have stepped out of it).
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sad_hotline
Better question: are the Southern United States and Canada similar to the Northeast, New England, Minnesota, & the Pacific Coast?
Ridiculous that the northern states, in their rich power and history, have to be compared. Those northern states should be the standard other regions are compared to.
New England has far greater population and global reach than the Maritimes.
Quebec nearly broke off from Canada two decades ago due to various differences, so that's not a great comparison.
The west coast and east coast of the US are global juggernauts of politics, science, business, etc. Maybe Toronto can come close, but Canada's west coast is pretty sparse. The deep south has some cutting edge stuff (Cape Canaveral) too, but I'm not sure how close it comes to the west and east coast.
Maybe one could argue that the midwest US is like Canada's midwest, but I'll leave that for midwesterners to argue.
I don't know why, but it aggravates me when the northern states are waved off as "just Canada". The northern states are massive in economy and population compared to all of Canada. It's like saying "NYC is a version of Providence". The Bos-Wash alone has 15 million more people than Canada. No hate to Canada though, it's an absolutely fantastic nation and the only other country I'd move to, I just find this whole comparison strange. Love to Canada.
I know what you're driving at and you have a point.
For some reason though, and I have mentioned this before on this site, pride in the south is seen as acceptable whereas pride in the north is seen as snobbish, undesirable, and "no fun allowed". For whatever reason, this has gone so deep that parts of the north try their best to claim to be a lost part of Dixieland. Parts of PA, Ohio, Indiana, even parts of NY and Michigan all have people glued to the idea of being southern or more like the south.
There is NO shame in being a proud northerner. Yes, northern culture has its blemishes, but so does southern culture!
Along these same lines, a lot of people attribute things to the south that are not exclusively southern. Including but not limited to just about all American food. Even going so far as to say CORN is a southern staple, when that could not be any further from the truth. It is simply an AMERICAN staple.
Frankly, southern culture has as much elitism as northern culture does. It just comes off in a different way.
For some reason though, and I have mentioned this before on this site, pride in the south is seen as acceptable whereas pride in the north is seen as snobbish, undesirable, and "no fun allowed".
Obviously Quebec is a different beast but Ontario and Manitoba are not radically different from Minnesota. I was just in Winnipeg this past summer. In many ways it reminded me of the Twin Cities.
Obviously it's an impossible question/hypothetical as there are just too many variables and dependencies.
As someone else alluded to upthread, I think middle/middle upper class suburban white culture in the northern United States is more similar to Canada than it is compared with much of the south. For every other ethnicity/race/sociodemo, I'd have a tough time arguing the same.
There are strong lacrosse/hockey/private school/long hair backwards hat/pack a lip/ old boys ties between upper class areas around major metros in the north and Canada. Even the humor and lingo. So I get the premise of the question for sure. I just don't think the comparison is there for a vast majority of America.
Obviously Quebec is a different beast but Ontario and Manitoba are not radically different from Minnesota. I was just in Winnipeg this past summer. In many ways it reminded me of the Twin Cities.
If you narrow the scope a bit or limit yourself to some specific examples, sure, there are some real similarities that span the borders. MSP has a lot in common with Winnipeg. I've spent a good amount of time in Portland Maine and St. John New Brunswick which I've said for years have a lot of similarities. Seattle and Vancouver are regularly compared on C-D and elsewhere (and do have some similarities).There are other really interesting comparisons out there too. New England has natural commonalities with the Maritimes, the Great Lakes region of the U.S. with the Great Lakes of Canada, the PNW has a lot in common with BC, etc.
But the OP's question was quite a bit broader than a few specific examples. It's pretty much impossible to essentially say that the entirety of both northern coastal regions of the U.S. plus Minnesota are more similar to the entire nation of Canada or the Southern U.S. They're all incredibly vast regions with so many differences within each that nobody can really say with authority that the PNW+New England+Minnesota is more similar to one or the other. The more focused comparisons are interesting, though.
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