Stronger ties -- Mexican-US border cities or Canadian-US border cities?

[north 42]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

On Dearborn...by percentage or raw numbers?

Percentage

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Going back to the topic about cross-border areas in Canada and the US, one place with a very cross-border sounding name is International Falls, MN, with Fort Frances, Ontario on the other side. However, both towns have small populations, several thousands each.

So, despite its very international-sounding name, it doesn't appear on the radar of most big city Americans and Canadians relative to the other big border crossings.

International Falls and Fort Frances is still a distance away from larger Canadian and US cities like Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Duluth, Fargo, Grand Forks etc.

Strangely enough, International Falls is probably more on the average American's radar than Thunder Bay, Grand Forks, etc, because International Falls is known as one of the coldest places in the country. It regularly gets a little press or notice from national newscasts like the Weather Channel, who want to point out the coldest temperatures in the US.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by north 42

While mainly true for my region, both Windsor and Detroit (especially Dearborn) have had a huge wave of immigrants from the Middle East. Dearborn has the largest Arab population outside of the Middle East, and in Windsor, Arabic is now the second most spoken language after English, and arabs are the largest minority in the city.

Many immigrants from the Middle East pick Windsor when immigrating to Canada because they also have family members who are now in Detroit, and they want to be as close to them as possible. Both sides of the border now have very large and flourishing Arabic communities, with a lot of interaction between them!

So really, family ties between the two cities are as strong as ever, just different ethnicities now. Windsor, though is definitely more multicultural than Detroit nowadays!

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

On Dearborn...by percentage or raw numbers?

Did the Arab and Middle Eastern immigrants to Windsor come mostly later than those that came to metro Detroit, or mostly at the same time?

According to Wikipedia, there was already a long history of immigration of various Middle Eastern groups to Metro Detroit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...y_of_the_Arabs

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Did the Arab and Middle Eastern immigrants to Windsor come mostly later than those that came to metro Detroit, or mostly at the same time?

According to Wikipedia, there was already a long history of immigration of various Middle Eastern groups to Metro Detroit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...y_of_the_Arabs

They mostly came later, probably starting around 25 years ago now.

[GlassCity]

BC politics aren't as easily explained as rural/urban. Rural Vancouver Island and the south in the province has a lot of left-wing support as kind of stereotypical hippie areas. The Interior is conservative because it's older and wealthier. The north is divided between Native-dominated left-wing ridings and the resource-dependent ridings in the northeast that go conservative.

The main variability is in greater Vancouver, that has half the province's population, and where many ridings can go either way.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

BC politics aren't as easily explained as rural/urban. Rural Vancouver Island and the south in the province has a lot of left-wing support as kind of stereotypical hippie areas. The Interior is conservative because it's older and wealthier. The north is divided between Native-dominated left-wing ridings and the resource-dependent ridings in the northeast that go conservative.

The main variability is in greater Vancouver, that has half the province's population, and where many ridings can go either way.

I'm guessing Victoria fits in the south. I'd figure it would be very conservative.

[Acajack]

No Victoria is mainly left or centre-left. Liberal or NDP federally most of the time. Lots of retired hippies there!

[ThePhun1]

It just strikes me as being a very conservative place. That's why assumptions don't always work I guess.

[Capsicum]

That's also the only area where the Green party (whose leader happens to be born in the US) has won any seat in a federal election in Canada.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

On Dearborn...by percentage or raw numbers?

Originally Posted by north 42

Percentage

According to Wikipedia, Metro Detroit itself as a metro area has the largest concentration of Arab Americans. It had 403,445, with NYC and LA's metro having in the 300s thousands, and San Francisco's about a quarter million.

Dearborn's percentage is the largest (40%).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Americans#Population

Metro Detroit is definitely the Arab American capital of North America at least. http://www.aljadid.com/content/detro...-north-america

"Yet, no matter what the figure is, Greater Detroit, with the exception of São Paulo in Brazil, is considered to be the largest Arab city outside the Arab world."

The only other city that might give Metro Detroit a run for its money outside the Middle East is São Paulo. São Paulo is a big city though (and many people probably have partial Arab ancestry from past immigration), so that's probably going by absolute numbers, not percentage.

There's also a lot of Arab immigration (and historically there was a lot of colonial ties, for instance from North Africa) to France, but it's hard to get estimates of numbers since France does not collect these ethnic statistics officially.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

It just strikes me as being a very conservative place. That's why assumptions don't always work I guess.

Really? How so? It's definitely very much a (by British Columbia standards) large, urban city with all the level of left-wing support that implies, plus it gets additional left-wing bonus from being on Vancouver Island. Maybe it's conservative in terms of being hesitant to growth and all that stuff, but that seems to me to be a typically left-wing trait.

I can get how if you don't know much about it you might expect it to be conservative, given its older population, but it's very much a typical centre-left urban west coast city.

I guess in BC it's kind of strange that older voters go both ways. There are the ones who settle in the interior (mostly the Okanagan region - Kelowna's the big city there, you can look it up on google maps if you're not familiar) who do lean much more conservative. But there are also the ones all throughout Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast (towns like Gibsons and Sechelt) and throughout the southeast (called the Kootenay region - towns like Nelson), where they fall more into the old hippie camp.

[softee]

Victoria might be the most far left leaning city in all of Canada.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Really? How so? It's definitely very much a (by British Columbia standards) large, urban city with all the level of left-wing support that implies, plus it gets additional left-wing bonus from being on Vancouver Island. Maybe it's conservative in terms of being hesitant to growth and all that stuff, but that seems to me to be a typically left-wing trait.

I can get how if you don't know much about it you might expect it to be conservative, given its older population, but it's very much a typical centre-left urban west coast city.

I guess in BC it's kind of strange that older voters go both ways. There are the ones who settle in the interior (mostly the Okanagan region - Kelowna's the big city there, you can look it up on google maps if you're not familiar) who do lean much more conservative. But there are also the ones all throughout Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast (towns like Gibsons and Sechelt) and throughout the southeast (called the Kootenay region - towns like Nelson), where they fall more into the old hippie camp.

To put it in perspective, I always assumed it was a place full of snooty rich people.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

To put it in perspective, I always assumed it was a place full of snooty rich people.

Like any city, it has neighbourhoods like that, but I can't really think of any one city anywhere that's entirely like that. For every snooty rich person in Vancouver, LA, NYC or wherever, there's a radical left-wing student or social assistance-dependent labourer.

But overall, Victoria at least stereotypically definitely doesn't fall into the images of those few cities. Its stereotype is very much rooted in hippies, whether young or old. If I was to compare it to a US city based on image, I'd compare it to Portland.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

But overall, Victoria at least stereotypically definitely doesn't fall into the images of those few cities. Its stereotype is very much rooted in hippies, whether young or old. If I was to compare it to a US city based on image, I'd compare it to Portland.

Though one difference I'd imagine would be that Portland has a lot more young people. Victoria, BC has the highest proportion of retirees of any Canadian major city.

[dc_denizen]

Maybe Santa cruz California is a good comparison to Victoria.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Maybe Santa cruz California is a good comparison to Victoria.

Are there vampires in Victoria?

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[Docere]

Originally Posted by LMich

Not to get too much further off topic, but while there was a significant defection to the GOP in 2016, the Dem presidential candidate still very much won labor union househoulds.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-ap...ion.jpg&w=1484

Most people have a pretty outdated view of union membership. It's not dominated by white male industrial workers anymore. Many are in the public sector and women and minorities aren't underrepresented among the rank and file.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Docere

Most people have a pretty outdated view of union membership. It's not dominated by white male industrial workers anymore. Many are in the public sector and women and minorities aren't underrepresented among the rank and file.

• Video Link

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Also, in general, when it comes to Canada vs. the US, it seems like the kind of rural, resource-industry type of places which gets NDP support doesn't have as much of an equivalent in the US. There's a bit of an element of it stateside, like in places where Bernie Sanders got support.

But Canada in general has much more of a left-wing, pro-union, rural electorate than the US, in small towns/rural areas which would be Republican there.

Yup, this can be found in Northern Ontario, Northern Manitoba and much of BC.

Northeastern Minnesota and the area around Butte, Montana seems to be the closest US equivalent.