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  #41  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2017, 8:43 PM
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We can call it 'Westerniness' just like Truthiness!
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  #42  
Old Posted Oct 19, 2017, 1:53 AM
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While Canada doesn't have a midwest per se..

I have traveled extensively throughout the American Midwest and can safely say that from my experience Winnipeg feels a lot more like a midwestern American city than a western city (think Calgary or Denver).

IMHO, Milwaukee is practically Winnipeg's twin on a lake. Same goes for St.Paul, Minnesota, and St.Louis, MO (which has three rivers of its own and a similar economic rise and fall based around river and rail transport).

Whenever I drive around Milwaukee it feels like I should know my way around without a map.

Oddly enough, I was talking to a bartender from Milwaukee who had been to Winnipeg for Folkfest, she said she felt the same way when it came to asking for directions in Winnipeg.

Many smaller cities like Thunder Bay, Duluth, and Fargo share a similar vibe.
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  #43  
Old Posted Oct 19, 2017, 2:03 AM
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Interestingly, and much to my chagrin..

Milwaukee like Winnipeg also has a similar socialist political tradition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewer_Socialism
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  #44  
Old Posted Oct 19, 2017, 2:07 AM
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Manitoba politically is quite centrist and has to me always had a similar small/blue collar feel to it as Wisconsin. We're not wacko rednecks like North Dakotans and aren't quite as affluent as Minnesotans.
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  #45  
Old Posted Oct 19, 2017, 5:40 AM
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I've heard before that Winnipeg is similar to Milwaukee in terms of 'feel'. The St. Paul comparison makes sense since it's (and Minneapolis) the nearest major city south of the border. I've also heard us compared to St. Louis, Chicago and Buffalo.
I question how similar Winnipeg is to Calgary or Edmonton, they are growing into a new 'oil boomtown' category from the 'prairie category'. It's like the big cities in Texas, they may be be Great Plains or Gulf cities but seem to share less features with other cities in these regions with each passing decade.
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  #46  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2017, 11:09 PM
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The Midwest concept doesn't really apply in Canada because the east-west divide is much sharper than in the US. In the US, you can drive from say, Cleveland to Omaha and it's a smooth transition. In Canada, it's separated by about 1000 miles of thinly populated Canadian Shield.

The heart of the Midwest is the Corn Belt which is centered around Illinois that runs from Ohio to eastern Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. We don't really have an equivalent in Canada. It makes little sense to place Windsor (the westernmost extension of the "rust belt") and Winnipeg (a Great Plains city) in the same region.

In the US, the Great Plains includes both "Midwestern" states (i.e. the Dakotas) and "interior West" states (i.e. Montana, Wyoming, Colorado) but isn't really a cultural region in the way the Canadian Prairies is.

Milwaukee and St. Louis are too "rust belty" to be compared to Winnipeg in my opinion. St. Paul (the smaller, more working class of the Twin Cities) may be the closest you get. Minneapolis-St. Paul aren't quite Great Plains cities but they do exert influence and serve a sort of "gateway" function in the Upper Midwest (as do Omaha and Kansas City further south).
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  #47  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2017, 5:42 AM
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Originally Posted by Only The Lonely.. View Post
Interestingly, and much to my chagrin..

Milwaukee like Winnipeg also has a similar "practical socialist" political tradition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewer_Socialism
Politically, one can compare Manitoba and Minnesota in some ways. Minneapolis elected socialist mayors as well and Minnesota politics historically had a social democratic tinge. The state Democratic Party is officially called the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party or DFL (the old Farmer-Labor Party merged with the Dems in the 1940s I think).
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  #48  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2018, 5:22 AM
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Winnipeg does promote itself as part of the Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor:

https://www.economicdevelopmentwinni...transportation
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  #49  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2018, 5:25 AM
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I don't see the St. Louis comparison. St. Louis is a very old, more tightly packed city that feels more like Cincinnati. In spite of the Gateway Arch, Kansas City (and Minneapolis-St. Paul) are more appropriate for the "gateway to the west" description in the US.
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  #50  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2018, 10:28 PM
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Interesting question to consider, and I’ve done a lot of it since reading Colin Woodward’s American Nations. Woodward’s main argument is that North America is divided into a dozen or so distinct nations, founded by different groups of European settlers who established foundational institutions and the dominant political attitudes. These founding people, even as they've become tiny minorities over time, still set the tone in these nations today. The book focuses on the U.S., but the map shows Winnipeg located within the Midlands nation, which originated in and around Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Founded mostly by Quakers. The Midlands, as well as Yankeedom (eg, New England) spread westward in the 18th and 19th century.



Within these nations is a whole strata of class distinctions, rural-urban divides, and a broad diversity of ethnicities. But dominant cultural patterns remain in place. (For example, New York City hasn’t been controlled by the Dutch for 350 years, but the city still follows in the same pattern of being business-minded and socially progressive/permissive its Dutch founders.) Everyone who arrives later from elsewhere basically ‘signs up’ for being part of this nation.

Somewhere not far to the west of Winnipeg and the Red River to the south of it, according to Woodward, the Midlands nation ends, and the Far West begins.

Up close, of course, Winnipeg is a little more complicated. Today’s Winnipeg is made up of at least two nations: English Canada of Ontario (which is also located in Woodward’s Midlands), and the Metis/French nation east of the Red River. Maybe there’s also a founding Orkney Scots and English-speaking Metis nation of the Selkirk Settlement, distinct from the Protestant British and Ontarians who began to 1860s and would spend the next 75 years building and ruling Winnipeg. I really don’t know how different and unrelated these two groups (Selkirk Settlers and English-speaking Metis, or the Ontario latecomers).

Historically, politically, and culturally, I see Winnipeg more as a remote outpost of Ontario and the American Upper Midwest than I do as the eastern edge of the Canadian West (Western MB, SK, AB). Similar to how St. Louis or Chicago were considered gateways to the American West, but are themselves Midwestern cities.

There is no Canadian Midwest – politically, there’s the three Prairie Provinces; geographically, there’s just one big triangle of inhabitable prairie and parkland surrounded by uninhabitable rocks – but I certainly think of Winnipeg (and the rest of yesterday's Red River Settlement, and today's Capital Region) as its own distinct animal within Western Canada and the Canadian Prairies. This is probably as distinct of a difference as there is between Winnipeg’s street system and that of almost every town and city to the west of it. Our city is built on a 200 year-old river lot system and far older trails used by Indigenous people and fur traders. Western cities were almost all built around the Dominion Land Survey system and rail lines of the late 1800s.

Architecturally, and the way many older parts of Winnipeg feel, I think is more akin to Indianapolis, Milwaukee, or St. Paul. I imagine it’s the same with regards to attitudes and manners.
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  #51  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2018, 12:03 AM
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With all due respect, Woodward seems to have a very superficial understanding of Canada. He should stop his analysis at the border.
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  #52  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2018, 6:04 PM
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Here's another way at looking at Winnipeg's place on the continent:

https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/image...n_2005_lrg.jpg
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  #53  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2018, 7:54 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Docere View Post
With all due respect, Woodward seems to have a very superficial understanding of Canada. He should stop his analysis at the border.
True. What attention he did pay to Canada was to briefly create an extremely glossy, over-idealized picture of French Canada/Quebec as this kind of pure society. So I do take a critical view to his arguments, but the idea of individual 'nations' within North America is interesting, and got me thinking about Winnipeg and its distinction within Western Canada (hence my long rant above).

Quote:
Here's another way at looking at Winnipeg's place on the continent:
Interesting. Seems to me to show the Winnipeg region as being the northernmost extent of the comparatively dense Midwest, rather than the sparsely populated West.
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  #54  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2018, 2:52 AM
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It's also interesting to note that the western Dakotas and eastern Montana are "emptier" than northeast Minnesota or Michigan's Upper Peninsula, while Northern Ontario is more thinly populated than southwest Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan. But yeah, on that map Winnipeg does like the northernmost point of the Midwest on the population density map.
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  #55  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2018, 3:06 AM
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Originally Posted by wardlow View Post
Historically, politically, and culturally, I see Winnipeg more as a remote outpost of Ontario and the American Upper Midwest than I do as the eastern edge of the Canadian West (Western MB, SK, AB). Similar to how St. Louis or Chicago were considered gateways to the American West, but are themselves Midwestern cities.
Yeah, the "Ontario of the Prairies."

But Manitoba seems more "cut off" from the US than Alberta/Saskatchewan. American immigration was less significant in Manitoba. Alberta and Saskatchewan obviously share demographic characteristics with Manitoba (i.e. Ukrainians) but also received a lot of German Russians and Norwegians from the Midwest/Great Plains. In Manitoba the Germans were much more Mennonite (and hardly any were Catholic, in contrast to Saskatchewan and the Dakotas) and the Scandinavian immigrants were Icelandic rather than Norwegian.
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  #56  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2018, 4:15 AM
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I see Winnipeg as sort of a mish mash of styles between "Midwestern" and western, which kind of fits in with how the city is geographically situated. Most of the older parts of Winnipeg (the inner city and maybe EK) as being really similar to a lot of big upper Midwestern cities (esp Minneapolis or St. Paul, depending on the neighborhood). The newer parts seem to match more closely with Western Canadian and some Western US similarities. I feel like Winnipeg was fully a Midwestern city until 20 or 30 years ago when it really started to become more integrated with Western Canada.
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  #57  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2018, 5:56 AM
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Some speak of a split between the Red River Valley and the "real" Great Plains (which are said to begin at the 100th meridian).
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  #58  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2018, 6:18 PM
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Originally Posted by USA View Post
I see Winnipeg as sort of a mish mash of styles between "Midwestern" and western, which kind of fits in with how the city is geographically situated. Most of the older parts of Winnipeg (the inner city and maybe EK) as being really similar to a lot of big upper Midwestern cities (esp Minneapolis or St. Paul, depending on the neighborhood). The newer parts seem to match more closely with Western Canadian and some Western US similarities. I feel like Winnipeg was fully a Midwestern city until 20 or 30 years ago when it really started to become more integrated with Western Canada.
If anything, the weakening of Canadian domestic East-West trading bonds in the last 30 years and the ever increasing direction of trade to a North-South orientation has WEAKENED Winnipeg's ties to the rest of Western Canada.

To me Winnipeg has a very Midwestern feel, though it is culturally very different than the nearest large cities, those being of course Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I have always thought that the American cities which most resemble Winnipeg are Kansas City and Omaha.

Within Canada, Winnipeg is more similar, especially culturally and politically, to Hamilton than it is to Calgary or Edmonton, although outside of the city the province is very much western, rural and small-town Manitoba are very similar to rural Saskatchewan or Alberta.

The northern towns are more similar to the Canadian Shield towns in northern Ontario; Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas look and feel nothing like Portage or Morden.
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  #59  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2018, 7:28 PM
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Originally Posted by Curmudgeon View Post
If anything, the weakening of Canadian domestic East-West trading bonds in the last 30 years and the ever increasing direction of trade to a North-South orientation has WEAKENED Winnipeg's ties to the rest of Western Canada.

To me Winnipeg has a very Midwestern feel, though it is culturally very different than the nearest large cities, those being of course Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I have always thought that the American cities which most resemble Winnipeg are Kansas City and Omaha.

Within Canada, Winnipeg is more similar, especially culturally and politically, to Hamilton than it is to Calgary or Edmonton, although outside of the city the province is very much western, rural and small-town Manitoba are very similar to rural Saskatchewan or Alberta.

The northern towns are more similar to the Canadian Shield towns in northern Ontario; Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas look and feel nothing like Portage or Morden.
I don't know, I've been to Edmonton and Hamilton and to me Winnipeg feels a hell of a lot more like Edmonton than Hamilton. It's a western railway city through and through to me.
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  #60  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2018, 8:51 PM
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I don't know, I've been to Edmonton and Hamilton and to me Winnipeg feels a hell of a lot more like Edmonton than Hamilton. It's a western railway city through and through to me.
Yes, a railway city with a (formerly anyways) substantial industrial base and its corresponding urban proletariat and a history of trade unionism and socialist politics (not unlike many of the big cities of the Midwestern U.S.), these aspects being much different from Edmonton.

In terms of appearance, Whyte Ridge or Sage Creek for example, could be, at least for those months when there is no snow on the ground, anywhere in North America, the bland monotony of modern suburbia being ubiquitous. The older parts of Winnipeg to me much more resemble some Ontario cities, and in turn Kansas City, Omaha, or to a lesser drgree Saint Paul and Milwaukee rather than those cities further west. As I stated before, the rest of Southern Manitoba feels definitively western.
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