[Docere]

Originally Posted by Abii

BC is dominated by Vancouver, both politically and economically. And I would argue that Vancouver is so different from Edmonton and Calgary that there's very little feeling of "brotherhood." I've been in all three cities and when I'm in Vancouver I feel like I'm in a totally different country. The culture is more progressive in Vancouver, but then you also have the COMPLETELY different climate/environment. On the surface you might say that both provinces are very dependent on natural resources for their economies, and that's true, but when you're in Vancouver you never get a sense of it. You don't really come across people that are flying in and out of coal mines, for example. But when you're in Edmonton it sometimes feels like 9/10 people are oil sands workers or somehow in tune with what's happening "up North."

Immigrants are also different. Yes, percentages are similar, but the type of people that are immigrating into these 3 cities are very different. Vancouver seems to get almost entirely white collar immigrants, whereas Edmonton and Calgary are more skewed towards blue-collar migrants. Vancouver also gets people that Alberta doesn't get, period. For example if you go to the North Shore suburb of Vancouver the dominant immigrant population is Iranian. There are also a ton of Iranians in the downtown core. When I was in Edmonton I only met one other Iranian in two years. Calgary has some. And there are other examples as well.

The three cities are very different in how they're set up as well. Calgary and Edmonton are just two big suburbs. Vancouver is only 75% nothingness (sprawl). The suburbs in Vancouver are moving towards the downtown Vancouver model so in time we can even say the percentage will be more like 50-60% sprawl.

Don't really think of Calgary as a "blue collar" city at all.