When did Toronto pass Montreal?

[Razor]

Originally Posted by pj3000

That's because there has never been a developed nation which has had so many wealthy, major (and minor) cities as the US has had. For a century starting in the 1870s, no other nation on Earth could boast anywhere near the number of booming cities as the US did.

It would be impossible to sustain that widespread level of economic and population growth among all of the cities, large, medium, and small.

If you want an example for reference with Canada: Canada has never even had a single Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Baltimore, Buffalo, etc.... cities that reached great heights of industrial production, population, and wealth and inevitably declined due to massive per capita wealth increases/population shifts/emerging growth regions

Agreed, and that's in keeping with the point in my last post. If Canada had 50 major cities, and a rustbelt region of cities that came to be in the industrial age, well some of them would decline. I'm stating this as an objective Canadian.

[Acajack]

To build on Nite's excellent post...

Montreal as Canada's largest city makes sense when you consider the country's origins as a French colony in the St. Lawrence valley (taken over by the British) and how settlement and development initially radiated outwards from there.

Maritime transportation was critical at the time and Toronto was not very accessible by water in the 1800s.

The first railways to cross Canada also radiated out of Montreal (taking advantage of its status as a port with Atlantic access).

The population of Canada grew fairly slowly and for a while the French Canadian population of the city and those who moved in from rural areas were an accessible and relatively cheap source of labour for British entrepreneurs based in the city.

As Canada evolved, the population in other parts of Canada like Ontario and the West began to grow a lot more, and the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway made Toronto more accessible by water (and aviation became a major mode as well).

So a lot of these advantages that Montreal once had began to fade.

And of course French speakers in Montreal and Quebec began to get a lot more uppity as well.

[Innsertnamehere]

Toronto's history is more intrinsically tied to British Loyalists fleeing the American revolution than most realize.

Ontario was more or less unsettled prior to the revolution, and that is largely why it wasn't included in the original american colonies. It only became settled more or less immediately after the revolution when british loyalists moved north out of the US following the revolution.

Pre revolution, Upper / Lower Canada (Quebec and Ontario) was almost entirely french, focused on the st lawrence in Quebec around Montreal. The only significant english population in the British territory was in Nova Scotia, and even then, not really.

Canada wasn't a part of the US revolution largely because nobody lived there other than the french, and the french didn't care to join. If you were british and moving to North America in 1770, why would you move to Upper Canada if New York was far more civilized and temperate?

Ontario wasn't really settled until following the revolution when British Loyalists, either fleeing the US or moving from Britain itself, had nowhere else to go on the continent.

It's no wonder Montreal had a lead on Toronto for the 19th Century, in 1800 Toronto (then known as York) was a small village while Montreal was already an established small city. Toronto didn't start experiencing significant growth until the second half of the 19th century and at that point Montreal was far ahead due to it's head start.

Toronto surpassing it was likely an inevitability, it just took Toronto 150 years to catch up.

An interesting alt-history is that if the US had never had the revolution and instead had slowly gained it's independence in a manner similar to Canada, likely sometime in the first half of the 19th Century, Ontario likely would have been settled far later, been home to far fewer people, and would have likely ended up as a part of the US.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

An interesting alt-history is that if the US had never had the revolution and instead had slowly gained it's independence in a manner similar to Canada, likely sometime in the first half of the 19th Century, Ontario likely would have been settled far later, been home to far fewer people, and would have likely ended up as a part of the US.

Or, without all of those British loyalists fleeing up there, perhaps the territory north of the great lakes might've become part of an expanded New France?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Or, without all of those British loyalists fleeing up there, perhaps the territory north of the great lakes might've become part of an expanded New France?

Perhaps, though it would still have been a huge challenge for us to grow the population to effectively occupy all that territory, as the European French were extremely unlikely to emigrate compared to the British, or even other peoples of Western Europe.

Though it's true we did have an extremely prodigious birth rate (known as la revanche des berceaux, or the revenge of the cradle) up until the 1960s.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Or, without all of those British loyalists fleeing up there, perhaps the territory north of the great lakes might've become part of an expanded New France?

Quebec was solidly British territory by the late 18th century, so I don't see it becoming "New France" if we say the departure from real history being the American Revolution.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the entirety of NA stayed a single country post independence in that scenario... then you get into other things like if the British would have had the Mexican-American War, and if those states would have remained as Spanish territories in Mexico.. perhaps Texas would have ended up an independent country. a "no revolution" scenario for NA opens up a whole can of worms haha. Perhaps Quebec would have ended up independent with the rest of the country remaining in whatever the US ended up becoming, and the area Canada covers today ending up being far less populated.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Quebec was solidly British territory by the late 18th century, so I don't see it becoming "New France" if we say the departure from real history being the American Revolution.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the entirety of NA stayed a single country post independence in that scenario... then you get into other things like if the British would have had the Mexican-American War, and if those states would have remained as Spanish territories in Mexico.. perhaps Texas would have ended up an independent country. a "no revolution" scenario for NA opens up a whole can of worms haha. Perhaps Quebec would have ended up independent with the rest of the country remaining in whatever the US ended up becoming, and the area Canada covers today ending up being far less populated.

France's imperialistic activity was also on hiatus in the latter part of the 1800s as they were dealing with the 1789 revolution and its fallout domestically.

France did once again ramp up the imperialism in a big way in the 1800s (starting with Napoleon of course) but by that time they'd moved on to other things and had basically written off northern North America.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Acajack

the European French were extremely unlikely to emigrate compared to the British, or even other peoples of Western Europe.

i wonder why that was.

when you look at what the british, spanish, and portugese did in the new world, it seems like france dropped the ball, relatively speaking.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Acajack

France's imperialistic activity was also on hiatus in the latter part of the 1800s as they were dealing with the 1789 revolution and its fallout domestically.

France did once again ramp up the imperialism in a big way in the 1800s (starting with Napoleon of course) but by that time they'd moved on to other things and had basically written off northern North America.

The Haitian revolution also probably factored a lot into France pulling back its imperialistic ambitions.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i wonder why that was.

when you look at what the british, spanish, and portugese did in the new world, it seems like france dropped the ball, relatively speaking.

France was probably the wealthiest country on earth, had very low birthrates (for that era) and had plenty of room within France. Germany and England were poorer and more overcrowded, with much higher birth rates.

So I imagine there was less pressure for non first-born sons to emigrate (the first-born usually getting land and/or assets). The main reason that Germans settled east to the Urals was bc non first-born sons had no prospects within historical German lands. The Rhineland, really the core of the Germanic world, has been overcrowded basically since the Middle Ages.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Nite

Montreal hasn't always been majority French. English was the majority for the middle of the 19th century (1831 and 1865) and pretty equal to french for decades after that. Montreal really because strongly french again after 1970 when Quebec became more urbanized and rural quebecers moved to the city dominated by english business interest for more opportunities.

The closest analogue i can think of is apartheid South Africa which was dominated by a white South African minority who had all the wealth and power in the country although they were a minority.
Montreal was pretty much the same when rural quebecers started to move to the city in big numbers and were treated as second class citizens, most stores were english only and you needed to know english to get a job.
This resentment of being dominated by an english minority in their own city and province gave birth to Quebec nationalism.

An interesting bit of history is that Most of Old Montreal was built by the English (companies and individuals) in the 19th century when they most dominated the city

I'd argue the best comparison with South Africa is between Afrikaners and White English-speakers. The English were a minority amongst the Whites, but the majority in the big cities and overall wealthier. The English lost their political power during apartheid, but kept the economic one.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Yuri

I'd argue the best comparison with South Africa is between Afrikaners and White English-speakers. The English were a minority amongst the Whites, but the majority in the big cities and overall wealthier. The English lost their political power during apartheid, but kept the economic one.

Another analogy is Swedish speakers in Finland, as Sweden and Finland were once a single country.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

France was probably the wealthiest country on earth, had very low birthrates (for that era) and had plenty of room within France. Germany and England were poorer and more overcrowded, with much higher birth rates.

So I imagine there was less pressure for non first-born sons to emigrate (the first-born usually getting land and/or assets). The main reason that Germans settled east to the Urals was bc non first-born sons had no prospects within historical German lands. The Rhineland, really the core of the Germanic world, has been overcrowded basically since the Middle Ages.

Good points.

If you simply look at a map, France is considerably larger than Germany and England, and very roomy considering what its population was and is.

France also has a considerable amount of arable land (compared to say Spain, which is also quite large but more arid) and a full range of geographic and climactic regions.

Not much impetus for large numbers of people to move out of there.

[Docere]

French origin, Montreal Island

1871 60.3%
1901 63.9%
1931 60.2%
1971 61%

The Quebecois population share held up pretty consistently from the late 19th through much of the 20th century, while British Isles origins declined as new immigrants (largely Jewish and Italian) came. Note that Irish Quebecers often became francophone.

Montreal's "anglo" population is rather NYC/Northeast Corridor-like.

Today, I'm guessing old-line Quebecois are a minority on Montreal Island, but a majority in the metro. Now it's split between "French" and "Canadien" responses.

[Docere]

Quebec society was a fragment of pre-revolutionary France, and was very conservative until the 1960s.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Docere

French origin, Montreal Island

1871 60.3%
1901 63.9%
1931 60.2%
1971 61%

The Quebecois population share held up pretty consistently from the late 19th through much of the 20th century, while British Isles origins declined as new immigrants (largely Jewish and Italian) came. Note that Irish Quebecers often became francophone.

Montreal's "anglo" population is rather NYC/Northeast Corridor-like.

Today, I'm guessing old-line Quebecois are a minority on Montreal Island, but a majority in the metro. Now it's split between "French" and "Canadien" responses.

They are still over 60% of the population in the city proper. Though the island also has a number of smaller municipalities, many of which have concentrations of anglos.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Good points.

If you simply look at a map, France is considerably larger than Germany and England, and very roomy considering what its population was and is.

France also has a considerable amount of arable land (compared to say Spain, which is also quite large but more arid) and a full range of geographic and climactic regions.

Not much impetus for large numbers of people to move out of there.

France absolutely has the best geography in Europe.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Good points.

If you simply look at a map, France is considerably larger than Germany and England, and very roomy considering what its population was and is.

France also has a considerable amount of arable land (compared to say Spain, which is also quite large but more arid) and a full range of geographic and climactic regions.

Not much impetus for large numbers of people to move out of there.

A relative of mine just retired and bought a house in rural Berry. (Around the geographic center of France.)

My parents and I were looking at the area on Street View. It was fascinating to see how rural/remote is it, being in the heart of an Old World country.

(She's been living for decades outside Paris, and wants peace and quiet in retirement. I'd say she's definitely getting that, where she is.)

France is surprisingly roomy.

(We're invited to visit, I'll likely eventually be able to post my own pics. It's just crazy rural. As rural as one can find in the Eastern USA, I'd say.)

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Razor

Agreed, and that's in keeping with the point in my last post. If Canada had 50 major cities, and a rustbelt region of cities that came to be in the industrial age, well some of them would decline. I'm stating this as an objective Canadian.

Rustbeltiness on a Canadian scale definitely exists, for example in the traditional steelmaking areas of Nova Scotia.

Same phenomenon, same reasons, smaller scale.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by lio45

France is surprisingly roomy.

You notice it traveling from Germany into France. Not right at the border, bc that was historically German land (Alsace), but once you get into historically French areas, the density drops off, the villages become more sparse, and everything seems more wild and less cultivated. It's kind of crazy given the ideal climate and location.

Western Germany, England and the Benelux countries feel like real wilderness disappeared 1,000 years ago.