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  #41  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2014, 8:40 PM
isaidso isaidso is offline
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I'll do it one of these days, but we've never bothered going over to the US side. Want the best view of the falls? That's on the Canadian side. Want tacky tourist crap, casinos, events, and amusement parks? They're mostly on the Canadian side. Want shopping? Most is on the Canadian side.

It seems like it's only in parkland and elegant historic core where the US side makes the grade. New York has Lewiston and Ontario has Niagara-on-the-Lake. There's a lot more to choose from on the Canadian side if you want to do winery tours as well. I'm interested in going to the US side, but there's not much to draw me across the bridge.
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Last edited by isaidso; Aug 25, 2014 at 8:57 PM.
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  #42  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2014, 8:56 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
What do you disagree with? You don't like the parkland more than the Vegas-ish stuff?

Both towns are kind of dumps, but, if we're talking just around the Falls, I think the U.S. side is quite a bit nicer. It's parkland vs. wax museums. Or am I missing some stuff on either side? To me, that Olmstead-designed island is the nicest part of either side, esp. when you get right up to the falls.

Or maybe am I confused? Is the island on the Canadian side? I'm almost certain we walked it from the American side.
Canadian side has nice stuff too like the Floral Showhouse.
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Nia...d2c56156bda288
Floral plantings like that seem more common on the Canadian side too.

The wax museums are up on Clifton Hill, a ridge that's above where you view the falls from the Canadian side.
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  #43  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2014, 9:21 PM
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Lewiston and Youngstown seem nice. How about Lockport and North Tonawanda? the latter appears to be blue collar Italian suburban w/eviscerated manufacturing basis, but maybe I'm wrong...
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  #44  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2014, 9:45 PM
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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
I'll do it one of these days, but we've never bothered going over to the US side. Want the best view of the falls? That's on the Canadian side. Want tacky tourist crap, casinos, events, and amusement parks? They're mostly on the Canadian side. Want shopping? Most is on the Canadian side.

It seems like it's only in parkland and elegant historic core where the US side makes the grade. New York has Lewiston and Ontario has Niagara-on-the-Lake. There's a lot more to choose from on the Canadian side if you want to do winery tours as well. I'm interested in going to the US side, but there's not much to draw me across the bridge.
Want crippling depression? The American side.
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  #45  
Old Posted Aug 26, 2014, 5:36 PM
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On the subject of "The Falls".

Ever wonder why the wiseguys named Viagra; Viagra?

For big girls with small appetites the prescription might be "Tonawanda".
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  #46  
Old Posted Aug 26, 2014, 7:03 PM
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Originally Posted by strongbad635 View Post
A while back, I looked into the city's history and was shocked to see what USED to be downtown Niagara Falls. It was charming, human-scaled, walkable, and apparently had a vibrant street life with lots of retail that made good profits. But, like many other midsized American cities, the powers that be put the fate of their city in the hands of the modernists, a breed who hate everything that makes cities great. They allowed them to physically gut, rape, and pillage their city into a muddled mess.
There's still a small part of the old downtown that survived - a block or two of 3rd Street. The rest was almost completely gutted and replaced with modernist, pedestrian-hostile garbage. On the Canadian side, the old downtown on Queen Street was merely abandoned, not replaced. The tourist areas are down on Clifton Hill and Fallsview Blvd so Queen Street was left alone. It's now being revitalized but it's still a mixed bag.

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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
I always thought the U.S. side is much more pleasant than the Canadian side, and am not aware of any "abandoned hotels and mud parking lots".

Basically it comes down to preference. The U.S. side is all parkland. You have that island, and the Olmstead parks along the river. The Canadian side is like Las Vegas, with wax museums, theme attractions, gigantic hotel complexes and the like.

But for actually seeing the falls, I like the U.S. side, by far. And the blocks close to the falls don't look depressed to me. We stayed in some loft boutique hotel with some Italian name. It was fairly pleasant. There's a main street with independent restaurants that was quite nice. But definitely, the vast majority of tourists are on the other side of the river.

I guess, in terms of economy, it would have been better if the U.S. just built a Vegas-style canyon of commerce right at the falls, since the other side of the river is destroyed anyway, so might as well get a cut of the loot.
The parks on the American side are great, but nothing was destroyed on the Canadian side The hotels and canyon of commerce are next to the parks, but the parks themselves have been protected since the 1800s. The riverfront around the falls is all parkland on both sides.
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  #47  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2014, 3:39 AM
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North Tonawanda is solidly German and Lutheran--actually it's one of the most German-American places I've ever been in. The city was once a center for the lumber industry (the NT high school mascot is the Lumberjack). Wurlitzer Organs were made there until the company folded up and carousels were also manufactured there as well. It has a charming downtown next to the Erie Canal--not tons to do, but it is a very pleasant city of 20,000.

Lockport is a decent city as well. It has experienced a lot of decline with the slow decline of Harrison Radiator/Delphi Thermal which employed about 20,000 at its height, equal to about the entire population of the city today. However it has a nice mostly intact historic downtown and the locks and the canal--worth seeing.
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  #48  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2014, 4:45 AM
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Want crippling depression? The American side.
That's what people say, but is it really like that? I hear Americans from WNY, PA, OH, MI always comment that things seem to be more prosperous on the Ontario side. Is it based in reality or a case of 'the grass is greener on the other side'?
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  #49  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2014, 7:53 AM
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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
That's what people say, but is it really like that? I hear Americans from WNY, PA, OH, MI always comment that things seem to be more prosperous on the Ontario side. Is it based in reality or a case of 'the grass is greener on the other side'?
Have you really never crossed the border? It's a little bit of both, actually. But, I'd hope people would expect it to be different. These are two different nations, after all, and often more different in their culture than people believe. At the subnational level, I think people also tend to forget that Ontario is basically the California + New York of its nation, meaning the province's influence is outsized compared to the the states across its border. While Western New York is in New York, it might as well be its own state, and Michigan is only the 9th largest state and one increasingly not seen as stategically important to the nation economically as it once was.

That's not to say places like Sault Ste. Marie, Sarnia, Windsor, and Niagara are shining economic examples of Canada, but being in Ontario coupled with the a culture that allows for less extremes (in both directions) cross-border city pairs that are quite different.
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  #50  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2014, 10:06 PM
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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
That's what people say, but is it really like that? I hear Americans from WNY, PA, OH, MI always comment that things seem to be more prosperous on the Ontario side. Is it based in reality or a case of 'the grass is greener on the other side'?
Yeah, the areas bordering Ontario are some of the most depressed places in the US. Look up population change and these cities Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland are generally right at the bottom as some of the only MSAs in the US to lose population.
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  #51  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2014, 10:31 PM
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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
That's what people say, but is it really like that? I hear Americans from WNY, PA, OH, MI always comment that things seem to be more prosperous on the Ontario side. Is it based in reality or a case of 'the grass is greener on the other side'?
Americans are just being polite

anyhow, see the Niagara Falls and Western New York Travel Guide for some guidance..
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  #52  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2014, 10:33 PM
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At the subnational level, I think people also tend to forget that Ontario is basically the California + New York of its nation, meaning the province's influence is outsized compared to the the states across its border.
FWIW, the equivalent state to Ontario would be California + Texas + New York + Florida + Illinois + Pennsylvania all fully merged into one, and also containing the capital within it as well (no separate District of Columbia any more).

That state would have the same weight in the country as Ontario in Canada.
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  #53  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2014, 2:12 AM
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Yeah, the areas bordering Ontario are some of the most depressed places in the US. Look up population change and these cities Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland are generally right at the bottom as some of the only MSAs in the US to lose population.
This is a gross exaggeration. While its true that the American "rust belt" cities have lost lots of population, to say that these "border" areas are among the most depressed places in the US is a bit misleading, in trying to characterize those places in the same manner as a much smaller place like Niagara Falls, NY.

Buffalo, Detroit, and Cleveland (among other "border" cities) may have lost population, but they still have very wealthy areas and remain very important centers of American commerce, education, etc.
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  #54  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2014, 4:00 AM
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Originally Posted by LMich View Post
Have you really never crossed the border? It's a little bit of both, actually. But, I'd hope people would expect it to be different. These are two different nations, after all, and often more different in their culture than people believe. At the subnational level, I think people also tend to forget that Ontario is basically the California + New York of its nation, meaning the province's influence is outsized compared to the the states across its border. While Western New York is in New York, it might as well be its own state, and Michigan is only the 9th largest state and one increasingly not seen as stategically important to the nation economically as it once was.

That's not to say places like Sault Ste. Marie, Sarnia, Windsor, and Niagara are shining economic examples of Canada, but being in Ontario coupled with the a culture that allows for less extremes (in both directions) cross-border city pairs that are quite different.
I seem to skip over the bits close to southern Ontario. I've lived in Toronto for 13 years and still never been to Buffalo or Detroit. I've been to NE, NYC, and Minnesota. All quite prosperous and nice imo.

You're quite right to point out that southern Ontario is the economic, political, and cultural centre of Canada. That said, with some exceptions here and there everything from southern Ontario to the Pacific is as prosperous or more so. Bits of northern Ontario (I guess Windsor too) look quite down and out, but very few Canadians live in these places.

I suppose it's just a bit of a shock for us as we've historically viewed those just across the border as being just like us, just a bit richer, a bit more prosperous, with slightly nicer cars. I hope these border states can rebound, but it seems that the new engines of growth in the US have shifted to the south, the west, etc.
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  #55  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2014, 4:12 AM
isaidso isaidso is offline
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Originally Posted by dc_denizen View Post
Americans are just being polite

anyhow, see the Niagara Falls and Western New York Travel Guide for some guidance..
Thanks for the link. I guess I'll just have to go see for myself. Honestly, I'm a bit tired of people putting down Buffalo. I'm sure it's a great town just like Hamilton. It just needs a bit of TLC.
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  #56  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 5:00 PM
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Windsor looks no more down and out than Hamilton, st. Catharines, Oshawa, Brantford, Sarnia or London even. It may seem that way because a large area around our DT has many low income families and immigrants, and is more visible, but there are many very high income neighbourhoods as well. You really should take a drive down to the Windsor-Detroit area, you may be surprised by what you see,


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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
I seem to skip over the bits close to southern Ontario. I've lived in Toronto for 13 years and still never been to Buffalo or Detroit. I've been to NE, NYC, and Minnesota. All quite prosperous and nice imo.

You're quite right to point out that southern Ontario is the economic, political, and cultural centre of Canada. That said, with some exceptions here and there everything from southern Ontario to the Pacific is as prosperous or more so. Bits of northern Ontario (I guess Windsor too) look quite down and out, but very few Canadians live in these places.

I suppose it's just a bit of a shock for us as we've historically viewed those just across the border as being just like us, just a bit richer, a bit more prosperous, with slightly nicer cars. I hope these border states can rebound, but it seems that the new engines of growth in the US have shifted to the south, the west, etc.
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  #57  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 5:50 PM
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Indeed, Oakland and Macomb counties (1/2 of Detroit, 2 MM people) are relatively wealthy with median incomes above that of the Toronto urban area ($80k and $62k, Toronto $68k). Even Wayne county had a median family income of $50k, despite being the home of Detroit.
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  #58  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 8:05 PM
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Indeed, Oakland and Macomb counties (1/2 of Detroit, 2 MM people) are relatively wealthy with median incomes above that of the Toronto urban area ($80k and $62k, Toronto $68k). Even Wayne county had a median family income of $50k, despite being the home of Detroit.
Despite the obviously bad rep. because of Detroit, the Michigan side of the border feels much wealthier, to me, than the Ontario side. That portion of far southern Ontario (Windsor area) does not feel very prosperous.

On the other side you have mostly prosperous Detroit suburbia and very healthy Ann Arbor area. Detroit (city proper) and postindustrial downriver suburbs, are obviously not healthy, at all, nor is Toledo, over the Ohio border, but most of Southeast Michigan looks as healthy as any typical metro area in the U.S. Heading north, though, Flint area looks awful.

Oakland County, in terms of wealth, probably compares favorably with anyplace in Canada, including Toronto, and Oakland isn't a small county.

And, on the other end, I doubt Western NY is less prosperous than adjacent areas of Canada. I would be really surprised if Niagara Falls-St. Catherines area had higher median income than across the border. Buffalo's economy, while slow-growing, is ok these days, and it isn't very blighted, even if there's been comparatively little built for decades.

Now if you're comparing the Toronto area to Buffalo, yeah, obviously Buffalo is going to look bad. But Buffalo is like 1/7 the size.

Last edited by Crawford; Sep 3, 2014 at 8:16 PM.
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  #59  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 8:16 PM
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As I understand it, Oakland County is basically Fairfax, Va transplanted to Michigan.
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  #60  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 8:19 PM
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As I understand it, Oakland County is basically Fairfax, Va transplanted to Michigan.
Pretty much, yeah. It's where the corporate relocatees, soccer moms and immigrant engineers live in sprawled-out McMansion bliss.
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