Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
[English] Canada and America are rapidly diverging - or at least as rapid a divergence as one could imagine in an era of the internet, globalization and given all the other things we share.
On the urbanization front, this is obvious, as you mention: 25 years ago, the average Canadian 30-something would buy a suburban tract house for their starter home just like their American peers. American millennials still buy suburban tract homes en masse; Canadian millennials - if they can buy at all - live in condo neighbourhoods which are quite different even from the new-build midrise rental apartment neighbourhoods that their millennial professsional counterparts in the more expensive coastal American cities would live in if they can afford decent housing.
The other, huge difference is the presence of Hispanics/Spanish in the US, which is essentially nonexistent in Canada. The Spanish/Hispanic influence is enormous; basically the only thing close to it is the presence of all Chinese languages and cultures combined in Metro Vancouver, and even there it feels like a smaller, more scattered presence than in the more Hispanic metros of the US. The effect this is having even on white American culture is enormous; if you go to a house in the US for a football party, you're served chips and salsa and most Americans have a lexicon of Mexican foods that would completely stump your average Canadian (most Americans of all classes and backgrounds know the difference between an enchilada, a gordita and a chimichanga). Then there are Anglo Americans in lines of work like construction, social work and agricultural management who have mastered Spanish to a level beyond the French capabilities of an Ontarian who took French Immersion to at least grade 10.
I did some comparisons between the 2011 census versus the 2010 American census, and I found that there were about 200,000 Canadians who had Latin American origins - or fewer than the Hispanic population of Metro Sacramento, CA.
|
I'd also add the history and influence of the black population in the united states that Canada lacks. only 2% of Canada is black compared with 13% in the US, and the cities in the uS with the smallest black populations still hover around 7% which is the same level as the Canadian city with the highest population of blacks, Toronto.
The US and Canada are very different due to demographics and migration trends, the uS is far more germanic, black and latino whereas Canada is far more british isles, french, and asian in it's demographic makeup.
Canadian cities showing this where the inner cities in canadian cities are associated with wealth and are desirable whereas in the US this hasn't been the case due to the existence of white flight, something Canada didn't have as we didn't have the demographics that lead to it.