I mean the other 2 countries, Canada and Mexico, how similar are both of them to United States?? Both countries have a similar economy and democracy etc, and I think those two countries share things like supermarkets, stores, etc. I suppose the cultural differences are not a lot, that is very nice.
The United States isn’t even similar to the United States
I’ve stepped foot in about 39 States and can agree. There’s an incredible amount of diversity in the United States.
Yes, so much diversity in your culture of strip malls and and suburbs.
inb4 someone names one of five cities with unique architecture in America.
Also, I’m Canadian so this is self-deprecating. We gutted our cities 80 years ago and turned them into boring asphalt wastelands. I can see that at an intersection not too far from my apartment, where one tall, beautiful building from 100 years ago still remains, but on every other corner is a gas station, a car dealership, and a parking lot. And the streets that were once walkable and pleasant are now stroads with ridiculous traffic patterns that were widened to make way for more car traffic. I know this because an old photograph of the same area is painted on the side of an electrical box near that intersection.
My dude, I hate to say it, but your inexperience with the US is showing. People from Kentucky are a COMPLETELY different animal than people from Cali. Hell, Cali is so big the northern part of the state is just SO crazy different from from southern areas. Some guy from Chicago is going to be so utterly different from someone from UP Michigan it’s hard to believe they’re from the same country.
I’m so tired of hearing Americans yap on like this. So, so tired. Does anyone else notice this? How they defend their different cultures found in each state by pretending they’re as dissimilar as European countries are from each other?
Especially when I’m talking about architecture and cities. Bleh.
I’m so tired of hearing pretentious douchebags yap on like this. So, so tired. Does anyone else notice this?
Yes is the simple answer to your question. The cultural differences can be dramatic.
What, pray tell, is your definition of culture? Are local cuisine and regional delicacies a part of it? How about accents, speech patterns, and slang/dialects? You mention architecture and cities, so do layouts of cities, differences in urban planning ideologies, planned vs organic growth, or style of buildings get accepted as culture?
If you’re going to dismiss any social differences between cities, then what is the difference or culture between any two modern cities in Amwrica, Europe, Asia, or anywhere else, other than the language they speak?
“If you ignore the culture, this city has no culture!”
Everyone knows the only definition of culture is what year your city was founded and therefore how many old buildings it has. Oh and If you need to leave city center to see the ruins of the structures Europeans destroyed during colonization it doesn’t count. Only old buildings you can see from a tour bus counts as culture, duh.
Canada is basicly Portland Oregan, execept Alberta which is Texas lite, and Quebec which is New Orleans but worse somehow.
Coahuila is Albuquerque lite??
Mexicans regularly joke about their northern states being wannabe Americans, the pacific northwest plays host to dueling movements that insist “Cascadia” should be its own country, I say dueling because they frequently differ on if this state should be a white ethnostate or a bio-regional communist hippytocracy.
For a visual check this map of North American cultures
wait but what culture am I then meow?? Wait what if I want to be american but I’m not yet?? Can I identify as semi american or something similar meow?? I just really like the US, they make the best software!! I love Mexico of course too but I think Mexico is americanized to a certain degree meow which to be honest makes it hard to separate its friendship with USA, despite what people say meow!!
Is your keyboard broken and replacing now for meow?
no, why?? Nya!!
Oh god… just realized you’re that person from the Linux communities. I will carry on with my day.
Am Canadian. From what I gather they’re pretty similar. We have the same scenario of lots of land, cheap energy, (relatively) young cities that could change to be car dependant as they grew. So lots of big houses, big stores, etc.
The differences: I don’t think our inner cities hollowed out with white flight, don’t have as much segregation (it’s actually quite the melting pot), while we have plenty of car dependency I don’t think it’s quite as bad as the US.
We have more progressive things like universal healthcare, decent public education. The US really seems intent on not having those.
Feel free to ask anything.
I would say our car dependency is the same or worse compared to America. In America they have the population to support small towns that are dense and walkable. These are rare enough that every single one of them is a tourist destination… but we don’t even have one. All the Canadian small towns have a highway, a Walmart, a Boston pizza, and maybe a strip mall.
Toronto, canadas biggest city, is fully dependent on the car. There are multiple highways running through it, cutting neighborhoods off and decreasing walkability. The transit system is somehow even less developed than the already meagre American alternatives, with two short subway lines servicing a city of like 3 mill.
Look at pictures of the freeways of most US cities, it’s far, far beyond what we have.
With the exception of certain cities like NYC, from what I hear US transit barely exists or exists in a token form that’s not really usable. We can complain ours isn’t good enough but it’s certainly there. It’s hard to tell because the complaining sounds the same, but I’ve come to conclude the US transit is far worse.
I’ve been fortunate to spend some time traveling down the west coast and into the south west then to the east of the US. I’ve also been lucky enough to travel through the west to the east in both Canada and the US too. Outside of New York I’ve not really made it to the east coast though.
Big differences are in some areas like city versus rural but as others have stated the borders don’t mean as much of a difference like opposite coasts within a country does. Geography certainly does seem to be more important.
Provincial /State boundaries can be a difference in some cases but more for the big cities versus the rural areas that share the borders.
Like the US in Canada the divide is often rural versus city, then primary industries beyond the French vs the English.
One big difference I did pick up in my US business trips is for large factories or businesses to be located in small town USA when in Canada the city centers would be the normal place for those types of industry. The rural Canadian areas are much more reliant on resource harvesting and tourism. They often hold their nose about tourism in some cases as a necessary evil. They really don’t want hordes coming to ruin it all.
I will say the absolute vastness of the US southwest made me realize there’s a lot of territory to try to unit and it’s a bigger job in the US with the sheer numbers and then the differences being boiled down to 2 major groups politically that have a real say.
In Canada we have 5 main political parties and then on the provincal level they can be pretty different from each other. Eventually we will end up with just 2 parties with enough elections but that will not be in my lifetime thankfully.
I think the biggest things for me are the terror of the US gun violence that just seems to be waiting around every corner depending on who you talk to or the need to gather arms to take on the government is a daily need. I’ve seen just a few packing weapons and I’m not sure I trust their ability to be a good guy if the need was to arise.
Unfortunately the mass shootings daily in the US are the few times a week reality and are pretty great for gun sales I suspect. Then followed by being bankrupted by US health insurance costs or a lack of it and being ill in the US system. The cost of drugs seems pretty insane too.
I’ll take the feelings of mostly being safe in Canada but others would disagree with this much like many would say the same thing about violence in Mexico. Canadian Healthcare is slow but you won’t be financially ruined by it yet.
Media is pretty different depending on your leanings. We can be pretty overpowered by the US media machine. Canadians can often know more general info than Americans about their own country and history at times. Canadians struggle to know more about Canadian history than US history.
The rage filled entertainment news of the US is not as common here but we get so much of a diet of US media our folks at times will parrot the same US talking points without realizing it doesn’t apply to many Canadian situations. When the vaccine objectors started protesting, they were fighting for US constitutional rights within Canada. They didn’t understand the right for Manitoba to join Canada wasn’t the same right as the US’s declarations.
Unfortunately these idiots have taken on flying Canadian flags all the time like our US cousins, becoming a hijack of our reserved flag waving as their identity. It’s ruined the previous typical flag waving we would do for Canada day and sporting events. We are not at nationalist as our southern neighbours. The rest of us look at these idiots with disdain and do not want to be associated with them. It’s almost at the same level as those that fly rebel flags in the US.
I’ve been fortunate to meet some wonderful people in Canada, Mexico, and the US. The geography of these countries can be quite stunning in areas without a doubt.
There are many differences but there are great similarites on a individual level. To paraphrase what George Carlin said, people individually can be fantastic but it’s a problem when they start to group up and when it’s 2 3 7 10 14 then you can start to get real problems.
Arguably, Cuba and the Bahamas (at least) border the US. If we get technical, so do Russia and several island nations in Oceania.
If we get technical, so do Russia
Don’t think that’s being technical. The US and Russia are literally neighbors.
You can even see Russia from your backyard.
The English part of Canada loves to act like it’s culturally distinct but what they watch, listen to and read is mostly American, to the point where Anglo Canadian production is so unpopular that the Canadian state media (TV, radio, online written content) might as well be two separate entities when you compare the quantity of original content in English vs French. French Canadians punch way above their weight in the amount of cultural content they produce basically just for themselves…
Politically it’s often said that Canada is the USA with a ~5 years delay…
(Edit: Aaaw, I made the anglos angry 😢)
and I’d say Mexico is the USA with a ~1 delay!!
One what?
Delay.
more similarity between Western Canada and Western US than between Western US and Eastern US …
Isn’t most of of Western Canada like the US South (Alberta = Texas), BC is like Washington/Oregon, maybe California?
(Alberta and Texas are central plains / central prairies / “midwest” – calling Texas western is a bit of a misnomer, the US decided that anything west of the Mississippi is the “Great West”)
Well, both other countries have universal health care although usa has death mass shootings, Canada apparently has death panels and Mexico has death cartel violence? Also Mexico seems to be allowing migrants to wait at their border to apply for asylum because everyone knows that the usa caused most problems with refugees and asylum seekers here.
Are we allowed to answer for the other thirty North American countries?
Some people don’t include Central America or the Caribbean countries when talking about North America, even though you technically are supposed to.
What about Greenland? They too are, one might say, a North American country.
I assume that Canada and the USA are more similar to each other than either one is to Mexico. We speak mostly English and we are rich countries. Although some differences will depend on latitude.
As a Canadian I grew up on Americam culture. We are very much sibling countries. They are one big culture together. I know very little about Mexico.
A little too similar in some cases.
It seems that we are importing the worst examples of American politics and capitalism into Canada.
I just hope we don’t import privatized healthcare.
I take it you’re not from Ontario? Cause Dough Ford is trying to do exactly that
Yeah I’m aware. He’s super corrupt.
