How did Canada become more culturally public transit than the US?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

While it is difficult to determine exactly how many Natives lived in North America before Columbus, estimates range from 3.8 million, as mentioned above, to 7 million people to a high of 18 million. The population of what is now the United States was nearly 2 million.

Not exactly empty.

The population of the United Kingdom in 1500 was 3 million.

Estimates I've read say that the population of Canada before the Europeans came was probably in the 250,000-500,000 range.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Not exactly empty.

The population of the United Kingdom in 1500 was 3 million.

The United States is roughly 40X bigger than the United Kingdom.

The United States was empty and Canada was even emptier. Oklahoma was...completely empty until many eastern natives were relocated there. Even after the various relocations, Oklahoma's native population is very small...to this day. I'm not making these comments to claim that the treatment of the natives was fair or anything close to it, only to point out that the scale of the events were much smaller than modern-day moral crusaders want to believe.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Yes, 70 vs 45. Perhaps you missed it but I listed the number in brackets for each country.

Yes, I did miss that.

[LuluBobo]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

No, it didn't. Mexico, the rest of Central America, and what is now Brazil had very large native populations. North America was almost completely empty by comparison.

I wouldn't go so far as to say empty, but the difference between Mexico and US+Canada was pretty massive.

Estimates range, but there's a rough consensus that the Indigenous population of Mexico was about 10x that of the Indigenous population of Canada+US combined.

Medieval Tenochtitlan was on par with the largest cities in Europe, and likely had a time larger than any European city (post-Constantinople conquering/post-Black Death). It spent time as potentially the largest city in the world outside India/China.

Estimates vary a lot on just how big, but the consensus was Beijing was the largest city in the world from ~1500-1650. And potentially all the way until 1820 when London overtook it.


That's not to diminish the past of the Indigenous peoples north of the Rio Grande, but I do think it's important to recognize the gulf in size difference between Mexica and the cold, forested or arid, and remote North America.

It is almost a guarantee the Indigenous population in the Canadian prairies is larger today than pre-European contact.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

While it is difficult to determine exactly how many Natives lived in North America before Columbus, estimates range from 3.8 million, as mentioned above, to 7 million people to a high of 18 million. The population of what is now the United States was nearly 2 million.

Not exactly empty.

The population of the United Kingdom in 1500 was 3 million.

Some have estimated that there were upwards of 100 million indigenous across North and South America before Columbus, so the estimate for North America is likely far above 3 million. Tenochtitlan had about half a million residents when Columbus reached the Americas, and it is one of the most well documented places. There were other large population centers throughout North America that just got lost to history. But many major U.S. cities were founded in close proximity to places that were large indigenous population centers prior to Columbus.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by LuluBobo

I wouldn't go so far as to say empty, but the difference between Mexico and US+Canada was pretty massive.

Estimates range, but there's a rough consensus that the Indigenous population of Mexico was about 10x that of the Indigenous population of Canada+US combined.

Medieval Tenochtitlan was on par with the largest cities in Europe, and likely had a time larger than any European city (post-Constantinople conquering/post-Black Death). It spent time as potentially the largest city in the world outside India/China.

Estimates vary a lot on just how big, but the consensus was Beijing was the largest city in the world from ~1500-1650. And potentially all the way until 1820 when London overtook it.


That's not to diminish the past of the Indigenous peoples north of the Rio Grande, but I do think it's important to recognize the gulf in size difference between Mexica and the cold, forested or arid, and remote North America.

It is almost a guarantee the Indigenous population in the Canadian prairies is larger today than pre-European contact.

There are probably more "Indigenous" people living in Canada today than there have ever been. Though of course at this point a significant number of them have some European admixture.

As well, it's hard to say what the Indigenous population of Canada (and North America) would be today if European colonization had never happened. Would Canada be a mostly "Indigenous" country with 20-30-40-50 million people today? What about the US? Similar to how most countries in Asia evolved?

[LuluBobo]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Some have estimated that there were upwards of 100 million indigenous across North and South America before Columbus, so the estimate for North America is likely far above 3 million. Tenochtitlan had about half a million residents when Columbus reached the Americas, and it is one of the most well documented places. There were other large population centers throughout North America that just got lost to history. But many major U.S. cities were founded in close proximity to places that were large indigenous population centers prior to Columbus.

The rule of thumb I've heard (from a few professors) is a 90 90 90 rule.

90% of pre-European Indigenous people lived south of the US.

90% of US+Canada Indigenous people lived in the US (fairly similar to the total population breakdown today).

90% of Canadian Indigenous people lived along the coast or great lakes.

[suburbanite]

It's important to remember to that by the time the first settlers arrived on the East Coast, native populations across North America had already been ravaged by smallpox, theorized to have been brought in during Ponce De Leon's expedition to Florida in 1513. Smallpox spread up the Mississippi through established trade routes all the way into the interior, completely wiping out the largest permanent settlements in North America created by the Mississippians. Mesoamerican populations would be similarly devastated, but the Spanish still had the experience of encountering the heart of a Native American civilization untouched by old world diseases. Extrapolating those pre-columbian populations based on the situation at first contact is a much cleaner exercise.

In contrast, by the time Europeans encountered the historically most densely populated areas in the U.S., they were nothing more than dirt mounds and forests no longer tamed by Native American forest fire practices. The people that did survive were nomadic in nature and less likely to encounter the spread of smallpox, leading to the inaccurate perception that North America had always been a place of empty untouched wilderness and small, unsophisticated roaming tribes. The remnants of North American civilizations were not encountered until hundreds of years after their downfall. This combined with the fact that they rarely used stone construction or kept permanent records makes estimating their pre-columbian populations a very difficult task.

There is no doubt that the vast majority of the hemisphere's population sat between the Rio Grande and Andes Mountains, but at the same time, North America was not a completely empty wilderness during pre-columbian times.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

It's important to remember to that by the time the first settlers arrived on the East Coast, native populations across North America had already been ravaged by smallpox, theorized to have been brought in during Ponce De Leon's expedition to Florida in 1513. Smallpox spread up the Mississippi through established trade routes all the way into the interior, completely wiping out the largest permanent settlements in North America created by the Mississippians. Mesoamerican populations would be similarly devastated, but the Spanish still had the experience of encountering the heart of a Native American civilization untouched by old world diseases. Extrapolating those pre-columbian populations based on the situation at first contact is a much cleaner exercise.

In contrast, by the time Europeans encountered the historically most densely populated areas in the U.S., they were nothing more than dirt mounds and forests no longer tamed by Native American forest fire practices. The people that did survive were nomadic in nature and less likely to encounter the spread of smallpox, leading to the inaccurate perception that North America had always been a place of empty untouched wilderness and small, unsophisticated roaming tribes. The remnants of North American civilizations were not encountered until hundreds of years after their downfall. This combined with the fact that they rarely used stone construction or kept permanent records makes estimating their pre-columbian populations a very difficult task.

There is no doubt that the vast majority of the hemisphere's population sat between the Rio Grande and Andes Mountains, but at the same time, North America was not a completely empty wilderness during pre-columbian times.

The highest estimates I've seen from scholars are around 10 million people for US-Canada and maybe 100 million for the Americas as a whole. And of course these are experts so they take epidemics into account in their "pre-Columbian" numbers, so prior to Florida 1513 and other nasty stuff.

So US-Canada was not empty back then, but still extremely sparsely populated.

Maybe 0.5 persons per km2, which is less dense than the Sahara Desert or Siberia today.

[MolsonExport]

New France was also extremely sparsely populated at the time of the British Conquest.

[Northern Light]

May I observe, of multiple posts above, that the total population, or indigenous population of North America in the 17th, 18th, or 19th Century has pretty much nothing to do with public transit at all, let alone the divergence in modal share between Canada and the U.S. largely in the post World War 2 era.

Perhaps we could get back on topic? Just a thought.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Exactly, so NY is even higher than TRIPLE the ridership of Toronto + Montreal COMBINED. And that's probably just the MTA. I think that can actually put an end to the topic.

To say nothing of Chicago, DC, Philly, Boston, Bay Area, LA, Atlanta...

Winnipeg is the 7th largest area of Canada; Boston is its counterpart at #7 CSA in the US... is Winnipeg "more culturally public transit" than Boston? How about our respective contenders at #3: Vancouver and DC... which is the "more culturally public transit"?

Winnipeg has higher transit mode share and higher ridership per capita than Boston.

In Q3 2023, Winnipeg Transit got 201.5k boardings per weekday, serving an area of 850k people. The MBTA in Boston got 778.6k boardings per weekday that same period serving an area of 5 million people.

Transit mode share in Winnipeg was 13.6% in 2016 compared to 12.2% in Boston in 2010.

The only US metropolitan areas with better transit usage than Winnipeg are New York, Washington, and San Francisco.

The only US metropolitan area with better transit usage than Vancouver is New York.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

New France was also extremely sparsely populated at the time of the British Conquest.

And the majority of the United States and Canada are still very sparsely populated. Each have tons of land that was uninhabitable before modern technology and is still useless today.

Using the figure of 20~ million to describe the current population of the New York City metro area...it has more people than all but four U.S. states (New York, California, Texas, Florida).

[nito]

Originally Posted by isaidso

In regards to prevalence of PT, population densities do matter. Policies to curb sprawl and encourage brownfield development increase population density. In 2023, Canadian Urban Area population densities were closer to that of European countries than the United States and Australia. I doubt this was the case a few generations ago. Due to rapid population growth and intensification efforts, Canadian Urban Areas could become denser than German, Italian, and French in the next 15 years. Data can be helpful so I will post some. Demographia publish tables for Urban Areas of 500,000+.

2023 Population Density of Urban Areas
(Number of 500,000+ Urban Areas in brackets)

France (8): 2,972 people/km2
Italy (9): 2,946 people/km2
Germany (14): 2,827 people/km2
Canada (9): 2,490 people/km2
Australia (5): 1,550 people/km2
United States (70): 1,220 people/km2
http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf

I think something is off with these figures, probably due to definition and boundaries? The UK in that file (relative to the other countries on your list) shows an average population density of 4,658 per sq km, way above the 2,946 and 2,972 per sq km respectively for Italy and France. Whilst the UK is certainly a densely populated country, and its urban areas are typically more concentrated due to limits on sprawl relative to other anglophone countries, they don’t have the large-scale apartment blocks that are common in most French and Italian cities. Canadian cities tend to possess more skyscrapers, but the urban form drops off dramatically down to single household units with broad streets, that you simply don’t see in Europe.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I was going off the wiki page, which I admit is 2011 numbers. The UK doesn't really have crazy high population growth though so I don't imagine the numbers have changed massively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...United_Kingdom

Canadian CMAs have also exploded in the last 2 years with Canada's population boom, they are larger than the figures you are posting. Latest estimates we have is still 2022, so the numbers are even larger than this, but:

1. Toronto - 6.7 (excluding Hamilton/Oshawa), 7.9 million including Hamilton / Oshawa
2. Montreal - 4.4 million
3. Vancouver - 2.8 million

The UK added >4m in the decade to June 2022, and – like Canada – has experienced a post-pandemic growth bounce with net migration (not including natural growth) in the YE June 2023 of 768,000. Expectations are that the population will surpass 70mn well in advance of previous predictions. Considering that England by itself (which accounts for 93% of all UK population growth) is approaching 60mn and is slightly larger in area than Southern Ontario, that would be considered by most to be strong growth.

Where there is a divergence, is that in Canada, there is a greater concentration of the population in fewer places with vast distances separating settlements. Whilst in the UK you tend to find (outside London) more, smaller, detached but well connected settlements. As an example, Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds is the same distance as Hamilton to Oshawa.