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View Poll Results: Which border has the stronger linkage between its cities on two sides?
On average, the Mexican-US border cities. 27 49.09%
On average, the Canadian-US border cities. 16 29.09%
On average, they are equally strong, or weak. 12 21.82%
Voters: 55. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 3:50 PM
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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.
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 3:52 PM
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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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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 4:09 PM
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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.
Agreed. A lot of the time you have family living on both sides of the border of the US and Mexico so there's a lot of cohesion. Never got that impression with US/Canadian border cities..other than Niagara Falls and due to tourism. Windsor and Detroit seem worlds apart and Buffalo doesn't really have a urban neighbor on the Canadian side. There are really small towns that straddle the VT/PQ border that obviously have a connection.
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 4:19 PM
ThePhun1 ThePhun1 is offline
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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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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 4:24 PM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
There are really small towns that straddle the VT/PQ border that obviously have a connection.
places like Derby Line, VT, where the US-canadian border literally runs directly through the town library have always intrigued me.

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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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 4:25 PM
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Originally Posted by ThePhun1 View Post
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.
Until 9/11 you could do that in Texas too.

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.
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 4:29 PM
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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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  #8  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 4:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
places like Derby Line, VT, where the US-canadian border literally runs directly through the town library have always intrigued me.

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?
It wasn't secured. There were a few open streets with signs informing you you were crossing the border. After 9/11 Dubya added gates to them so now you have to pass through the village's main street, where there's a customs booth. The residents can come and go, of course, but there's more border patrol around nowadays.

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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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 6:04 PM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
Agreed. A lot of the time you have family living on both sides of the border of the US and Mexico so there's a lot of cohesion. Never got that impression with US/Canadian border cities..other than Niagara Falls and due to tourism. Windsor and Detroit seem worlds apart and Buffalo doesn't really have a urban neighbor on the Canadian side. There are really small towns that straddle the VT/PQ border that obviously have a connection.
I can't say that I see that Detroit and Windsor are "worlds apart" if you want to be very specific and only compare the city of Detroit to the municipality Windsor/Essex they have different demographics but if Windsor is looked at as a part of greater Detroit it fits in pretty well. But I think there is a stronger shared sense of identity in the region than on the southern border there are shared sports leagues shared economy and travel is easy an expanded drivers license will act like a passport and also if you operate a ship on the Great Lakes there isn't any law about sailing back and forth from US to Canada and vice-versa. While there is a shared Latin culture on both sides of the southern border there is a also a lot of divisiveness and disagreement on whether to tighten up the border even more. At the same time Detroit and Buffalo just had a bit of a contest for who is going to host the new major international crossing.
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  #10  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 6:32 PM
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Originally Posted by Capsicum View Post
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.
The US and adjacent Mexican border cities share 2 common languages to a much greater degree than people who don't live near them realize. Very many people on each side of the border speak the language of the other side and US dollars are commonly accepted on the Mexican side (at least of Nogales, Sonora/Arizona, the one with which I am most familiar). I live about 40 miles north of the border and even in my town Spanish speakers have no trouble using their own language in any commercial establishment.
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  #11  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 7:16 PM
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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.
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  #12  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 8:26 PM
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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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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 8:35 PM
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I believe Vermont's socialist leanings are informed by Canadian and Quebecois structures.
Interesting but, then, how do you explain New Hampshire's libertarian conservatism?
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 8:44 PM
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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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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 9:11 PM
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Interesting but, then, how do you explain New Hampshire's libertarian conservatism?
Its border is less connected maybe. The decision making is centered around Concord in the Southern part of the State. The ethos is more of a Yankee one than the cooperative Church devolved to government one that subsists in Quebec whereas Vermont's strains are closer. Bernie Sanders' Socialism is the kind that informed Naomi Klein's parents when they left The US for Canada in the same period.
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 9:31 PM
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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.
What are you talking about? This is incorrect.

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
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 9:33 PM
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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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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 9:38 PM
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What are you talking about? This is incorrect.

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
Perhaps that's the case in Laredo. My fiancée grew up in McAllen and I've been down here several times. It's a lot more integrated than you think. Most of their nannies and housekeepers lived in Mexico and commuted over, for instance.
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 9:40 PM
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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.
yeah. looking at google maps i could find only one border crossing between new hampshire and quebec, while i counted 14 border crossings between vermont and quebec.
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2018, 9:44 PM
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Perhaps that's the case in Laredo. My fiancée grew up in McAllen and I've been down here several times. It's a lot more integrated than you think. Most of their nannies and housekeepers lived in Mexico and commuted over, for instance.
Being integrated is much different than saying there's no border security until you hit San Antonio, which is really far away from McAllen, TX -- 240 miles apart. Sure there's lots of people that commute daily from Mex to Tex and vice versa with family on both sides as somebody else already mentioned.

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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