Which countries have a city or cities that dominate more than here?

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by lio45

That "have ever", IMO, makes your statement incorrect. Canada, at Montreal's peak (early 1800s), would have likely been firmly in the top half of current countries for centralization in a primate city.

Is there good data for the early 1800s list of Canadian cities by population?
According to this, even in the 1850s, Montreal wasn't that much of a proportionally large concentration of Canada's population.



Plus, wasn't Canada like, very rural back then? A larger proportion likely didn't live in a big city itself as opposed to small towns, right?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

That "have ever", IMO, makes your statement incorrect. Canada, at Montreal's peak (early 1800s), would have likely been firmly in the top half of current countries for centralization in a primate city.

This is debatable and Montreal wasn't that important in the early 1800's. It had a population of 9,000 in 1800. Back in the early 1800's, Ontario was barely settled, Quebec City was the more important administrative centre for Canada, and Canada amounted to the St. Lawrence area. British North America's "big city" was London, which had 2 million people in 1850. By 1890, Montreal had 220,000 people but Toronto had 180,000.

Canada was never a centralized country with a single dominant city.

[lio45]

Well, we all agree that we're talking global averages, right? Most countries have several main cities, it seems to me. Countries with one main city that's the center of everything are the exception rather than the rule.

For example, it's estimated that at some point (a few decades in the latter half of the 1800s), 70% of the wealth in Canada was held by people in Montreal's Golden Square Mile. And that's only one neighborhood.

Also, FWIW, while confirming the aforementioned stat, I happened to stumble upon this (see last sentence).

Originally Posted by wikipedia

From the 1790s, the anglophone business leaders of Montreal, who included and succeeded the men of the Beaver Club, started to look beyond Old Montreal for spacious sites on which to build their country homes. They developed the farmland of the slopes of Mount Royal north of Sherbrooke Street, then nothing more than a quiet country lane. The mansions they built there came to represent a period of prosperity when Canada was at its economic peak and Montreal was its unrivalled cultural and financial capital.

Would you say most countries nowadays have an unrivalled cultural and financial capital? Some do, obviously; some don't. At first sight I think most don't.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Is there good data for the early 1800s list of Canadian cities by population?
According to this, even in the 1850s, Montreal wasn't that much of a proportionally large concentration of Canada's population.

Population isn't really that important (if that's your be all end all for this discussion, that might be why we're disagreeing).

For example,

Newfoundland: ~500k
Greater St. John's: ~200k

It's only 40% of Newfoundland's population... yet, if you were to consider Newfoundland as a country, wouldn't you agree it would be close to the "has one primate city that greatly stands out as dominating cultural/financial life" end of the spectrum for countries...?

(And yes, I'd definitely call St. John's the unrivalled cultural and financial capital of Newfoundland.)

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The Canadian media are obsessed with the UK. In reality, there should be no more media time allotted to the UK than France, Italy, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Germany, or Indonesia but there's more UK coverage than all of these countries combined.

Is the CBC run by an arm of the British royal family? You'd think it was. Canada may have a large block of people of anglo-saxon stock but that shouldn't mean that they devote so much time to the mother land of this ethnic block. The UK should be treated like every other country.

They could cut back on UK coverage by 90% and it would still be out of whack.

Come to Austraila if you want to talk about a nation's media being ''obsessed" with the UK. Canada isn't as infatuated nearly as much.

But regardless, I'd rather our media be obsessed with the UK as opposed to that crap we are attached to the south. We are a Commonwealth country; let keep with our Commonwealth roots. If anything, we should be up in arm about the amount of Yankee influence that has plagued this country. Seriously, who wants to be like them anymore?

Bring on CANZUK.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Come to Austraila if you want to talk about a nation's media being ''obsessed" with the UK. Canada isn't as infatuated nearly as much.

But regardless, I'd rather our media be obsessed with the UK as opposed to that crap we are attached to the south. We are a Commonwealth country; let keep with our Commonwealth roots. If anything, we should be up in arm about the amount of Yankee influence that has plagued this country. Seriously, who wants to be like them anymore?

Bring on CANZUK.

isaidso has issues with Canada retaining ostentatious ties to Britain. I am not an Anglo-Canadian or really an anglophile but I tend to be on the same side as you, and think that a bit more Britishness might serve as a bit of a counterweight to the American juggernaut that too often subsumes everything else, be it of Canadian, British or any other origin.

(I actually thought about this topic when I noticed that CBC was broadcasting the BBC's Royal Christmas Holiday Show or something like that over the weekend in prime time.)

And on a related note, this week the main private TV network in Quebec TVA (similar to CTV or Global - probably more CTV as it's top dog in the ratings) has programmed what it calls "Cinéma de Paris" in prime time. So basically every evening their prime time schedule is devoted to blockbuster movies from France.

Obviously you'd never ever see CTV or Global do something like that.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I have mixed impressions of Toronto's cleanliness from back then. I wasn't alive in the 1970s, but some of my earliest memories were going downtown with my parents in the late 80s and wondering why all the gum on the sidewalks was black. I also remember playing with stray cigarette butts on the floor of Terminal 1 and my mom getting mad at me. Then again, I don't exactly have a perfect memory of things that far back, and I might have observed these things more because I was closer to the sidewalk, so to speak.

My memories of Toronto from that era are that it was pretty clean, but also much grittier. More shuttered storefronts, lots of parking lots and dilapidated buildings, particularly on main streets outside the downtown core. Lots of brick buildings still had a kind of darker sheen to them which I suppose would have been a throwback to older, smokier days. This would have been the early 90s which was probably the height of the Old City's (relatively minimal) decline.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

My impression from photos is that the Toronto of the past may not necessarily have been cleaner, but it was a lot more orderly. Construction crews didn't cut into the sidewalk and repave it sloppily with asphalt. Road crews didn't leave cones and old sandbags by the side of the road when they were done with construction. There weren't corny video screens playing CP24 everywhere or cheap backlit signage obscuring heritage facades. Subway stations had clean lines, and didn't have crumbling ceilings with a spaghetti web of electrical conduits drilled into them, or shrink wrapped ads plastered over the tilework.

The roadwork thing for sure, but not so sure about the obscuring of heritage facades. Yonge street was extremely garish back then too, just with more neon and less video screens - backlit signs were everywhere by the 90s. Postering was possibly more prevalent in areas like Queen W as this was pre-internet and that was one of the better ways to spread the news about shows. If anything I'd say the main streets outside the core were actually a bit worse at preserving heritage as a lot was left to simply rot (think quintessential "appliance" store with vacant apartments above). With the creeping gentrification many more buildings have been restored, brick sandblasted and ugly painted brick restored.

There's both good and bad to this, of course.


BlogTO has some good photo collections of Toronto over the years:
https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/03/..._extravaganza/
https://www.blogto.com/slideshows/yo...toronto-1970s/
https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/03/..._extravaganza/
https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/12/..._extravaganza/

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Come to Austraila if you want to talk about a nation's media being ''obsessed" with the UK. Canada isn't as infatuated nearly as much.

But regardless, I'd rather our media be obsessed with the UK as opposed to that crap we are attached to the south. We are a Commonwealth country; let keep with our Commonwealth roots. If anything, we should be up in arm about the amount of Yankee influence that has plagued this country. Seriously, who wants to be like them anymore?

Bring on CANZUK.

With the possible demise of NAFTA, and with BREXIT, now might be the time to consider strengthening Commonwealth ties. Before the UK joined the European Union, one of the strengths of the Commonwealth was free trade. A reinvigorated Commonwealth (especially Canada, Australia, NZ, the UK, possibly South Africa and the anglo Caribbean) could serve as a counterweight to other trading blocks in the world. We have linguistic, historical and cultural commonality, and a free trade area seems like a natural extension. It would also be neat if there were free movement of peoples as well as goods.

Bring on the new Commonwealth I say!!!

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The Canadian media are obsessed with the UK. In reality, there should be no more media time allotted to the UK than France, Italy, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Germany, or Indonesia but there's more UK coverage than all of these countries combined.

Is the CBC run by an arm of the British royal family? You'd think it was. Canada may have a large block of people of anglo-saxon stock but that shouldn't mean that they devote so much time to the mother land of this ethnic block. The UK should be treated like every other country.

They could cut back on UK coverage by 90% and it would still be out of whack.

Canada, for the most part, started out as an extension of Britain. The most fundamental aspects of our society - language, culture, religions, institutions - are all derived from Britain. It has nothing to do with "Anglo-Saxon stock" or ethnicity. Those of us who aren't of Anglo-Saxon stock are just as affected by the British roots of our country as those who are. These are fundamental things that will always tie us to them and always make them a bigger part of our consciousness than most other countries. It's the same way with the way Western culture pays more attention to ancient Greece and Rome than other civilizations of that era that were similarly dominant, like the Persians, Arabs or Chinese. This is never going to change regardless of how much Anglo-Saxon stock there is.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Canada, for the most part, started out as an extension of Britain. The most fundamental aspects of our society - language, culture, religions, institutions - are all derived from Britain. It has nothing to do with "Anglo-Saxon stock" or ethnicity. Those of us who aren't of Anglo-Saxon stock are just as affected by the British roots of our country as those who are. These are fundamental things that will always tie us to them and always make them a bigger part of our consciousness than most other countries. It's the same way with the way Western culture pays more attention to ancient Greece and Rome than other civilizations of that era that were similarly dominant, like the Persians, Arabs or Chinese. This is never going to change regardless of how much Anglo-Saxon stock there is.

But does the US pay as much attention to Britain as Canada? Or do all former "extensions of Britain" give Britain the same attention?

[Acajack]

It might not be on the level of Canada or other Commonwealth countries but I have always found the US to be more British than is usually acknowledged.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

With the possible demise of NAFTA, and with BREXIT, now might be the time to consider strengthening Commonwealth ties. Before the UK joined the European Union, one of the strengths of the Commonwealth was free trade. A reinvigorated Commonwealth (especially Canada, Australia, NZ, the UK, possibly South Africa and the anglo Caribbean) could serve as a counterweight to other trading blocks in the world. We have linguistic, historical and cultural commonality, and a free trade area seems like a natural extension. It would also be neat if there were free movement of peoples as well as goods.

Bring on the new Commonwealth I say!!!

Here's a fun fact: Canadian citizens who live in the UK (even if just on a temporary work visa) can vote in British elections as the UK grants the franchise to all Commonwealth citizens.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Here's a fun fact: Canadian citizens who live in the UK (even if just on a temporary work visa) can vote in British elections as the UK grants the franchise to all Commonwealth citizens.

What? Really?!

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It might be on the level of Canada or other Commonwealth countries but I have always found the US to be more British than is usually acknowledged.

In what ways, apart from the daily assumptions and social/cultural norms that are common to the Anglosphere in general or that are seen as generally American (eg. speaking English, or how ordinary run-of-the-mill foods that are taken for granted as generically "American" are shared with Britain, like apple pie, cheddar cheese etc.)?

I guess there's also certain things about how American culture held on to British things longer than the Brits themselves (eg. like how tightly Americans were unwilling to give up imperial for metric units) or how Americans use "fall" rather than "autumn" more often, which was more traditionally English (and autumn is more Latin/French).

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Canada, for the most part, started out as an extension of Britain. The most fundamental aspects of our society - language, culture, religions, institutions - are all derived from Britain. It has nothing to do with "Anglo-Saxon stock" or ethnicity. Those of us who aren't of Anglo-Saxon stock are just as affected by the British roots of our country as those who are. These are fundamental things that will always tie us to them and always make them a bigger part of our consciousness than most other countries. It's the same way with the way Western culture pays more attention to ancient Greece and Rome than other civilizations of that era that were similarly dominant, like the Persians, Arabs or Chinese. This is never going to change regardless of how much Anglo-Saxon stock there is.

Another thing is, on that topic of media exposure of non-Anglophone countries, people say places like the US and Canada deemed "Anglo-Saxon" should be recognized as more diverse and look towards countries other than the UK (or the UK and France in Canada's case) since the people other than those settler groups should be recognized (eg. African Americans, Germans, Irish, Italians, Ukrainians, Jews, Chinese, Mexicans etc.).

But having people of those descent (aside from first generation immigrants) does not appear to make the average American or Canadian care more about those places than news from the UK.

Does having a large German American population or Italian American population, or Mexican American one, make Americans as whole follow Germany, Italy, or Mexico in the news more? I don't think so to that great of an extent, if at all.

Does having a large Ukrainian Canadian or Chinese Canadian population make Canadians as a whole follow Ukraine or China in the news more either? I don't think so either.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

What? Really?!

Yep.

https://www.yourvotematters.co.uk/ca...gister-to-vote

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Yep.

https://www.yourvotematters.co.uk/ca...gister-to-vote

That's odd because the Commonwealth countries are so populous and so far flung and spread out across the globe.

I mean, Nigerians, Indians, Pakistanis, Kenyans and Jamaicans can all vote in UK elections? I had no idea!

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

But does the US pay as much attention to Britain as Canada? Or do all former "extensions of Britain" give Britain the same attention?

To add to what others have said, the short answer is yes in many ways, inasmuch as they pay attention to anything outside their borders anyway. Americans are probably more obsessed with the royal family than we are, for example.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It might not be on the level of Canada or other Commonwealth countries but I have always found the US to be more British than is usually acknowledged.

Beyond the Northeastern elite and, perhaps, bits of the old South? I wouldn't have thought so, although things British, and in particular the accent, do seem to have more cachet among 'Muricans than Canadians.

[JM5]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

With the possible demise of NAFTA, and with BREXIT, now might be the time to consider strengthening Commonwealth ties. Before the UK joined the European Union, one of the strengths of the Commonwealth was free trade. A reinvigorated Commonwealth (especially Canada, Australia, NZ, the UK, possibly South Africa and the anglo Caribbean) could serve as a counterweight to other trading blocks in the world. We have linguistic, historical and cultural commonality, and a free trade area seems like a natural extension. It would also be neat if there were free movement of peoples as well as goods.

Bring on the new Commonwealth I say!!!

This makes a lot of sense, but with members located all around the globe it would be less efficient than economic blocks that are clustered together.

More importantly, building a free trade block based on former colonial cultural ties goes completely counter to current political trends. It would effectively entail cognitive dissonance on the part of the progressives governing several of the countries in question. In their minds, our former ties to the UK are a historic fact that is to be slowly downplayed and re-cast as exploitative and damaging in nature. Certainly not something to be embraced, reinforced and continued. Current trends of turning slightly to the UK can be seen more in the light of turning AWAY from the US.