Stronger ties -- Mexican-US border cities or Canadian-US border cities?
Cross border cities like San Diego-Tijuana, and El Paso-Ciudad Juarez, on the southern border, or say, Detroit-Windsor and Buffalo-Niagara Falls-Toronto, or Metro Vancouver down to Seattle?
Detroit-Windsor is still the largest agglomeration I think and the fact that Anglo-Canada and the US shares a language makes the case for a stronger tie there, but then again, there may be a case for the Mexican border communities as immigration from Mexico has created ethnic communities where the Mexican-American population is larger than Canadians living in the US in absolute number. Canada is a larger trading partner of the US than Mexico, but not by that much (China is a larger trading partner to the US than both). From the point of view of Canada, the US is the largest trading partner by far, than any other country. |
Border towns down on the Texas-Mexico border are pretty unique culturally. I just don't think that's the case along the Canadian border.
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How can it be anything but the US-Canadian border? Until 9-11, you could just walk across the US-Canadian border. There's no language barrier either.
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some people even have their own private houses bisected by the international border. how does such a wacky situation work? how can the border possibly be secured when it runs right through a town like that? |
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And "the border" isn't really at the actual border. You need to drive 45 mins or an hour from the border toward San Antonio before you reach a proper checkpoint. There's not a whole lot keeping one from wandering between McAllen and Reynosa, on the other hand. There's not much of a language barrier, either. Everyone on the Texas side speaks Spanish. |
both are the same. however, it feels like the mex-usa border has more ties because there are many more people living more closely along it and each side looks more different structurally. actually though if you look more carefully its kind of not that at all, because the usa-mex borderland is its own culture, known as la frontera. its not exactly mex and its not exactly usa, its got its own thing going on from food to music to everything and like for example locally laredo and nuevo laredo are just los dos laredos.
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There are houses in between the customs in other places, as well, such as Canaan VT (there's one building straddling the border) and Beecher Falls VT (where the house between the two customs is fully in Quebec though). Stanstead is the best example though, with the Haskell Opera bisected, as well as a couple residential buildings on the main street*, plus Canusa Street in Beebe. edit: actually, looking at Google sat view, there are many more buildings than I recalled that are cut by the border. I'm there regularly, but I rarely venture off my Main Street route (crossing the border in the old village as it's quicker, then going back to the freeway after that). |
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What an interesting thread topic, so kudos to OP
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I sense that there may be stronger ties along some of the U.S/Mexican border towns if anything because of extended families. Mexicans, like other Latino cultures, are very big on close knit families and I can almost see relatives staying in touch even after a few generations..Attending gatherings, etc. Now I want to say the same for maybe some of the French heritage families along the Quebec/ Vermont border, but I'm not entirely sure. They may be too distantly removed from each other by now, but for some reason I see Mexicans keeping that bond going.I know a few people around the Niagara Falls region who have been there for generations..Even with their peculiar last Anglo name, I can't see them even knowing the person across the U.S border who may have the same last name, and be related...I think that Anglosphere is different when it comes to extended families and staying in touch,etc. I have to say, I agree with the Detroit/Windsor connection..The local culture is very similar at least with the shared love of all things Detroit sports..those two cities seem to be very much on the same page when it comes to that..When we crossed, it was seamless (at the time), and there was lots of traffic going each way..Even the waterways we were on had a lot of both Canadian and American boaters. |
Razor's point is very perceptive. Quebec's francoohone migration to neighboring states petered out 60 plus years ago. The family links exist but distance and other things, like allegiances to their respective jursidictions has created a distance over time. Quebec borders on 4 states: NY, VT, NH and ME. The French extracted population in these states and Massachussets, RI is significant, and the crossover culture is fairly strong. I believe Vermont's socialist leanings are informed by Canadian and Quebecois structures. Mexico and the US are divided culturally by more extreme historical divisions. Canada's opposition to the US in war stopped at the 1812 conflict. The Mexican-American war and the Mexican Revolutionary war and the shoddy incompetent governance that ensued contributed to the distance between the US and Mexico as much as the language disparity has. Canada is at once more integrated in North American mindscaping and less dependent on account of a more robust set of opportunities.
I worked on a movie where we shot at Stanstead Qc bordering Beebe Plain Vt a number of Years ago. It was funny how the place was get up to look like a small Pennsylvania town while the US customs was within sight of the main street. We had snow cannons shooting in summer and curious bystanders on both sides of the border looking on. The movie was "Taking Lives" with Angelina Jolie. |
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An interesting thing I recently learned about the Detroit-Windsor connection was that during the height of the Motown sound in the 1960s, the most popular radio station for debuting and promoting new music from the Motown label in the region was actually a Windsor station, and several of DJs who worked at the station were Americans who commuted across the border. I saw this on a documentary about the little known Canadian influence behind the success of Motown records called Hittsville US Eh!
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The Tex/Mex border is an actual border, with actual security, with a large river separating the two sides. Laredo is 150 miles south of San Antonio. You have to cross bridges to enter either country. Laredo, TX port of entry https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/...-3008x2000.jpg |
NH's border with Quebec is small and northern NH is sparsely populated. In contrast, VT's biggest city (Burlington) is near the border plus numerous other towns and villages nearby. VT has a much longer border and Montreal is an hour or so away.
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You still have to go through customs at each port of entry in McAllen. https://www.google.com/maps/dir//U.S...2!2d26.0968854 |
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