[Interregnum]

If you had to associate only one American state per Canadian province, what would you select, and what would your main criterion be?

DISCLAIMER: As at the cinema, it’s time to suspend disbelief and propose theory.

Personally, the easiest way for me to find correspondences is through what I term “urban distribution”, i.e. how the cities in a province/state are arranged, how many there are, how their pasts played a factor, among other things.

Ceteris paribus, here’s how I’d group “the ten”:

Alberta ~ Texas
British Columbia ~ California
Manitoba ~ Indiana
New Brunswick ~ Louisiana
Newfoundland-Labrador ~ Alaska
Nova Scotia ~ Maryland
Ontario ~ New York
Prince Edward Island ~ Rhode Island
Quebec ~ Florida
Saskatchewan ~ Nebraska

And just so I don’t clog the server, here’s one sample of possible city resemblances between regions:

Brandon ~ South Bend (seemingly university cities)
Portage la Prairie ~ Fort Wayne (historic trading crossroads)
Thompson ~ Evansville (disconnected from the other major metros in the region)
Winnipeg ~ Indianapolis (unquestionably the primate city)

Do introduce your own ideas, and do critique mine as well: I can post more similarities if anyone’s got further interest.

[Boris2k7]

Alberta is far more similar to Colorado than Texas... though some similarities are there.

[Reesonov]

Poor Interregnum, you don't hang out in the Canada subforum very often, do you? This kind of subject is strictly taboo. This is going to get ugly. I can only offer you this age-old piece of Albertan advice: wrap your legs around that bull tightly and hold on for dear life. Yee-haaaaaaaa!

[malek]

spare the n00b

[Bigtime]

Poor Interregnum, you don't hang out in the Canada subforum very often, do you? This kind of subject is strictly taboo. This is going to get ugly. I can only offer you this age-old piece of Albertan advice: wrap your legs around that bull tightly and hold on for dear life. Yee-haaaaaaaa!

I take offense to this Texas like analogy, you are simply continuing the myth that all of us here in Alberta are a bunch of bull riding redneck cowboys! :haha:

Seriously though, I think Alberta has about a 60% Texas, 40% Colorado feel to it.

[jeffwhit]

http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/images/event_el_paso_salt_war.jpg


http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/canada-magazine/issue15/site/images/lorette.jpg


Yes, the similarities are striking.

[habsfan]

I take offense to this Texas like analogy, you are simply continuing the myth that all of us here in Alberta are a bunch of bull riding redneck cowboys! :haha:

Seriously though, I think Alberta has about a 60% Texas, 40% Colorado feel to it.

You mean to tell me that not all albertans wear cowboy hats and drive pick up trucks with their gun racks in the back, all the while screaming YEEEHAAAA??

[Bigtime]

Well I do see mountains in both those pics! :D

[Bigtime]

You mean to tell me that not all albertans wear cowboy hats and drive pick up trucks with their gun racks in the back, all the while screaming YEEEHAAAA??

Well I drive a Volvo S60 with my golf clubs in the back, and I only scream foooooooore!

[jeffwhit]

If you had to associate only one American state per Canadian province, what would you select, and what would your main criterion be?

DISCLAIMER: As at the cinema, it’s time to suspend disbelief and propose theory.

Personally, the easiest way for me to find correspondences is through what I term “urban distribution”, i.e. how the cities in a province/state are arranged, how many there are, how their pasts played a factor, among other things.

Ceteris paribus, here’s how I’d group “the ten”:

Alberta ~ Texas
British Columbia ~ California
Manitoba ~ Indiana
New Brunswick ~ Louisiana
Newfoundland-Labrador ~ Alaska
Nova Scotia ~ Maryland
Ontario ~ New York
Prince Edward Island ~ Rhode Island
Quebec ~ Florida
Saskatchewan ~ Nebraska

And just so I don’t clog the server, here’s one sample of possible city resemblances between regions:

Brandon ~ South Bend (seemingly university cities)
Portage la Prairie ~ Fort Wayne (historic trading crossroads)
Thompson ~ Evansville (disconnected from the other major metros in the region)
Winnipeg ~ Indianapolis (unquestionably the primate city)

Do introduce your own ideas, and do critique mine as well: I can post more similarities if anyone’s got further interest.

Seriously, how do Quebec and Florida go together? And Bloomington is clearly the college town in Indiana.

Also, PEI is actually an island.

BC-Cali works reasonably well because both place's interiors are full of freaks.

[Blue 24]

I take offense to this Texas like analogy, you are simply continuing the myth that all of us here in Alberta are a bunch of bull riding redneck cowboys! :haha:

Seriously though, I think Alberta has about a 60% Texas, 40% Colorado feel to it.

I think Colorado, and Texas, have some Alberta in them, but when you get down to it, Alberta is made up of people from all over Canada, every prov/ter, and from all over the world, so this has made a unique place.
I think every prov/ter is unique in their own right.
I was Born in New Brunswick and now live in Alberta, but i call both home.
However, there are differences in culture, language, geography, and everything just seams old in New Brunswick, which i enjoy. The biggest difference that catchs my eye in the number of churches. In New Brunswick there seams to be more, if thats true or not i don'y know, but their churches tend to be in the old style, not in theses new odd designs.
I got side tracked, but the point is that yes their are similarities in some states and provs, but deep at the core they are different.

[Doug]

You mean to tell me that not all albertans wear cowboy hats and drive pick up trucks with their gun racks in the back, all the while screaming YEEEHAAAA??

Not many Texans do either.

[The Chemist]

Alberta is far more politically liberal than either Texas or Colorado.

[Canasian]

Qubec and Florida? Do you mean similar b/c of the resorts? Treblant/ FLA beaches, mountains?? I don't get it.
I would say Quebec is more like NY state or Vermont. THey both have similar terrain, and VT has ski resorts, and QC is a wedge between the Maritimes and Ontario- like NY is between New England and NJ / the mid atllantic.

[Reesonov]

Personally, the easiest way for me to find correspondences is through what I term “urban distribution”, i.e. how the cities in a province/state are arranged, how many there are, how their pasts played a factor, among other things.


Montreal = Miami?
Quebec City = Orlando?
?

[feepa]

This thread will be locked in less then 48 hours I bet.

[dubiousmike]

Quebec ~ Florida

Wait? What?

Quebec doesn't really have a US analogue. But the closest would probably be Louisiana. And even that comparison does neither Quebec nor Louisiana much justice.

[shreddog]

May as well get my comments in before this puppy get's locked ...

NFLD - Michigan. A jurisdication of two disparete regions seperated by water.
PEI - North Dakota. Sparsly populated, argiculture is king.
NB - Oregon. Trees and fish.
NS - Wisonsin. Both have the largest Gaelic populations in their respective countries.
Quebec - New Mexico. Relevance of their non-English speaking populations.
Ontario - Tennesee. Both have economies where auto manufacturing and service industries dominate.
Manitoba - Oklahoma. Both have a river named the Red.
Saskatchewan - Washington. Both have a professional football team, but not a professional hockey team.
Alberta - Pennsylvania. Both are dominated by two key cities with different economic focus, but that compliment each other.
British Columbia - Arizonia. Both have economies strongly tied to mining.

Probably not the first associations that came to people's mind, but certainly as good as anything else I have seen!

[Jay in Cowtown]

I've been all over the state of Texas, I'm in the process of buying a winter residence/investment property there... rural Texas and rural Alberta are full of Cowboys and very similar... the cities in each, not so much.

I'd say Alberta is more like Colorado though.

[Greco Roman]

Manitoba is more like Minnesota. Both have only one major city so no squabbling about which city is better (ahem.........Alberta..........ahem jk), both have agriculture lands, tall grass and mixed-grass prairie, both have flat lands and rolling hill countrysides, both have vast expanses of boreal forest that include the beautiful precambrian shield, both have about 100,000 lakes including some of the largest lakes in the world, both have similar physical shapes, both are connected to eachother, and both are connected to major bodies of water. I love them both! :cheers:

[240glt]

I think BC is more like it's neighbor just to the south than California

[vid]

Northern Ontario has nothing in common with New York. We're more like Alaska. Very sparsely populated, especially in the north, with one or two major cities (one of which is 65% port) and it's chock full of wingnuts.

Caribou, too.

[LordMandeep]

I compare Toronto to Chicago, well becuase they are very alike in population.

I compare Calgary to Houston, well they have similar economies.

[MolsonExport]

There is no place in the States analogous to Quebec, just like there is no place in Canada analogous to Mississippi.

[big W]

There is no place in the States analogous to Quebec, just like there is no place in Canada analogous to Mississippi.

I am with you on that one. Granted that can be said about most states in the US and most provinces as I personally feel each province is distinct from the other and most are distinct from US states (which are quite different as well).

Having recently been to Colorado (was there in late October) I cant see the resemblance to Alberta. It is in some ways similar but Alberta is truely distinct from any place in the US I have been to (about 40 states). There is nothing in Colorado like northern Alberta, which is half the province (land area and population). Yes is it similar when you are in the South but once you go North then its different. Not to mention the people in Alberta are generally much more left leaning than what you will find in Colorado.

[vid]

Are we talking about the same Colorado here? The Colorado that is legalising pot? Or am I mixing up Denver with the entire state?

Calgary won't be legalising pot for a long time. I bet the federal government will get there first.

[Greco Roman]

^ I love the quote on the bottom of your post :cheers:

[dennis]

Prince Edward Island and Hawaii are both completely surrounded by water.

[vid]

Alberta and Maine both have lakes. :banana:

[The Jabroni]

I can understand Manitoba being like Indiana. Indianapolis and Winnipeg both have beltways, both farming regions, but that's about it. I don't know what else Indiana has in terms of flora and fauna, but all I can say is that Indiana doesn't have 100,000+ lakes in the region.

Also, Quebec being like Florida?

:gtfo2:

[Only The Lonely..]

Well in my opinion, Manitoba is the love child of North Dakota and Minnesota.

Minnesota has 10,000 lakes, we have 100,000 lakes. The province even looks like a super sized version of the state.

However, parts of the province are quite flat like North Dakota. I’ve never been in a city as flat as Winnipeg, and most who visit this place are quick to point that out.

Many people often associate Winnipeg with Minneapolis. Having grown up in Winnipeg and visited Minneapolis I would suggest that Minneapolis is considerably more suburban than Winnipeg.

A lot of Winnipeg's neighbourhoods are more urban, having been built around old street car lines whereas in Minneapolis the freeway is king.

From watching movies, Winnipeg looks and acts more like a U.S. rust belt city. I have seen films shot in Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit and have often thought to myself that some of those scenes could just as easily been shot here.

[marmorek]

BC - California (The City of Vancouver is San Francisco, the suburbs (and eastside is LA)
Yukon/NWT/Nunavut - Alaska
Alberta - Colorado in the rockies, Texas in the plains
Saskatchewan - Kansas or Nebraska
Manitoba - Minnesota or North Dakota (flat and cold in winter with plenty of lakes)
Ontario - New York
Quebec - Hawaii (radically different from everything else)
PEI - Rhode Island (small)
Newfoundland - Florida (wild weather)

I'm not sure about New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.

[Windex]

You could probably compare B. C. to the Northern half of California, from San Francisco up. Comparing it to the whole state just doesn't work in my mind though. As for New York to Ontario, that seems pretty valid just for the disparity between NYC and Upstate New York as compared to Northern and Southern Ontario.

[ReginaGuy]

The problem is that it's hard to compare any province with any state, beacause the provinces are so huge and radically different from region to region

[crooked rain]

Just to prove how arbitrary these comparisons are, I will make the case that every Canadian province is essentially the same as Minnesota

BC - both BC and MN are known as highly left leaning politically
Alberta - AB has a town called Viking and MN has a football team called the Vikings
Saskatchewan -agricultural land in the south, Canadian shield and lakes in the north
Manitoba - for the same reason as Sask
Ontario - for the same reaon as Sask
Quebec - great rivers cut through both (the St Lawrence and the Mississippi)
New Brunswick - lots of forest land in both, both have a old port city past its peak (Saint John and Duluth)
Nova Scotia - Twin Cities -> Minneapolis - St Paul, Halifax - Dartmouth
PEI - famous fictional ladies (Anne of Green Gable and Mary Tyler Moore)Newfoundland - if 'Fargo' is to be believed, both a populated by people with funny accents


Were a nation of Minnesotas.

[marmorek]

^ :haha: :haha: :haha:

[big W]

Just to prove how arbitrary these comparisons are, I will make the case that every Canadian province is essentially the same as Minnesota

BC - both BC and MN are known as highly left leaning politically
Alberta - AB has a town called Viking and MN has a football team called the Vikings
Saskatchewan -agricultural land in the south, Canadian shield and lakes in the north
Manitoba - for the same reason as Sask
Ontario - for the same reaon as Sask
Quebec - great rivers cut through both (the St Lawrence and the Mississippi)
New Brunswick - lots of forest land in both, both have a old port city past its peak (Saint John and Duluth)
Nova Scotia - Twin Cities -> Minneapolis - St Paul, Halifax - Dartmouth
PEI - famous fictional ladies (Anne of Green Gable and Mary Tyler Moore)Newfoundland - if 'Fargo' is to be believed, both a populated by people with funny accents


Were a nation of Minnesotas.

Thats the best post in this thread. I love it.:tup: :jester:

[LordMandeep]

i disagree Minnesota doesn't have a major urban center...

[vid]

i disagree Minnesota doesn't have a major urban center...

Minneapolis has more people than Montreal and is almost twice as big. How does it not have a major urban centre???? :P

Fuck if Duluth was in Canada it would be the 14th largest city. It has more people than Halifax in it's metro area!

Lack of an urban centre, my ass. What about Rochester?

TrueViking did a really good comparison, showing that Minneapolis/St Paul was like Calgary/Winnipeg.

[240glt]

I fly in & out of Minneapolis on my way to Milwaukee for work (It's the hub for Northwest Airlines) & I'm always blown away by how big the twin cities area is!

[LordMandeep]

Minneapolis

Population (2000)
- City 382,618
- Density 2,691.4/km² (6,969/sq mi)
- Metro 2,968,805

[vid]

That isn't a major city to you? :koko:

And those numbers are old. It's over three million now. Closer to 3.5.

It's a major city, whether you like it or not.

[shreddog]

Let's see, the Twin cities have an NHL team, a NBA team, and Major Baseball team AND an NFL team. Yep, no major centers there.

Hey, maybe when Toronto gets an NFL team for itself, it can be a major center just like Minnie??

Seriously though, posts like that show that it is not only Americans that lack knowledge of places outside their own little realm.

[MolsonExport]

Minneapolis has more people than Montreal and is almost twice as big. How does it not have a major urban centre???? :P



What are you talking about? Minneapolis does not have more people than Montreal, anyway that you look at it (city proper and/or metropolitan region.

[vid]

I got my numbers mixed up. Montreal actually has 1.05 times the population of Minneapolis metro! My bad!

I'm sorry I scuffed the masterpiece that is Montreal's inflated ego. You are once again better than Minneapolis.

*crisis averted :tup:*

[caltrane74]

Ontario is a combination of the Midwestern folksiness of Ohio, the Industrial Might of Michigan ( maybe greater) the Financial Buzz of New York and the Boldness of Illinois.

[MolsonExport]

I got my numbers mixed up. Montreal actually has 1.05 times the population of Minneapolis metro! My bad!

I'm sorry I scuffed the masterpiece that is Montreal's inflated ego. You are once again better than Minneapolis.

*crisis averted :tup:*

Certainly better than Thunder Bay.

[vid]

Certainly better than Thunder Bay.

When did I say it wasn't? Show me a city of 1.3 million people that ISN'T better than Thunder Bay. :rolleyes:

Honestly! How stupid do you have to be to mix something up THAT bad??

[204]

Quebec - Hawaii (radically different...

That's closer, but Puerto Rico would be a better fit. It's not a state, but a commonwealth and Quebec doesn't think it's a province anyway....

[vid]

"Quebec doesn't think it's a province"

Well, it was a nice thread while it lasted. :doh: