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Originally Posted by lio45
I wouldn't claim to spend "any appreciable time in the two places", but I do like to leave the freeways to cast looks around.
To me, this, below (a little town that I happened to like when I passed through it), could easily pass off as Southern Ontario. Now let me quickly say that, no doubt, to the trained eye I trust you that " the differences in [...] architecture are striking" but if you haven't spent a ton of time comparing both, the differences won't be striking. Street is larger, maybe? But even things like the style of the traffic lights is completely similar (and different from Quebec's).
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The main street of the southern Ontario town would only be two lanes. But even if it were four lanes, like Stratford, where I live, it would be a lot narrower. The shops in Southern Ontario wouldn't be so wide, and there wouldn't be any awnings.
Okay, I admit I'm sort of nitpicking a bit. And I admit that I know what the main streets of all of the cities in towns in southern Ontario look like, so I knew that your photo was American. But still, go off of the main drag to the residential neighbourhoods, and the differences really jump out at you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lio45
But you admit there are "differences in political attitudes and social norms" between, say, San Francisco, and rural Alabama? Yet it's the same country. Use the same range for your spectrum, and you'll see that the Canada-US gap isn't absolutely dwarfing others like the Coastal-Flyover gap, Old-New gap, Urban-Rural gap, North-Sunbelt gap.
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Guns, violence, racial tension, socioeconomic disparities, loud people, aggressive people, a vague but palpable sense of menace at night: these are common denominators throughout the U.S. that override the differences between San Francisco and rural Alabama as compared to perceived similarities between southern Ontario and Michigan.
The differences are stark. I mean, do you know when hunting season is in Ontario? Does anyone? I don't have a clue. I've never met or seen a hunter in my life. But I'll never forget, one fall weekend, taking the I-75 through Michigan to the Upper Peninsula and seeing hundreds upon hundreds of pickups pulling some kind of "hunting trailer" behind them. Goin' huntin'. And those were just the trucks we passed. It was a pilgrimage.
Every gas station we went to or passed was selling hunting supplies, like corn and other things, stacked up beside the pumps. Every single one.
You do not see this is rural Ontario. Oh, I'm sure there must be deer hunters around here, maybe, and I've seen signs that say "no hunting," but I've never seen a truck with a rifle rack around here, and I've never heard talk of hunting. Ever.
Believe me, Stratford is a central kind of place where the farmboys come to drink and act stupid, so I'm surrounded by pickup trucks 24-7. You'd think I would have overhead someone talking about hunting in a line in the Timmies or at the supermarket, but no. Never.
That would be impossible to say in Michigan.