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.
This guy is visiting many places all over the US, month after month, spending his time (often for days) talking to the natives and really digs into that diversity.
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.
Edit: lmao, got ‘em
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.
It’s funny that person assumed I’m American, as well. Born and raised in London, UK, yet lived in America for a number of years.
My outlook is entirely from an outsider perspective, and the differences in culture is very, very evident like the examples you mentioned.
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.
You can almost literally drive from Paris to Moscow and back in the same distance as it takes to get from Los Angeles to New York. You think it’s impossible for a country as large as the United States to have unique subcultures?
European cultures had time to develop before travel was easy, so in practice they were much further apart in terms of culture spread. The territorial size argument here doesn’t work.
Of course you’re right, because the US was entirely vacant before a single unified culture simultaneously migrated to all corners of its borders. Weirdly enough, that happened after the advent of trains, cars, planes, the internet, etc. so there was no opportunity for pockets of subculture to develop.
Totally negates my point! I should have thought of that. Embarrassing.
I’m so tired of hearing pretentious douchebags yap on like this. So, so tired. Does anyone else notice this?
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.
What a horrible take - you clearly haven’t traveled much, abroad or even in your own country. Diversity and culture is more than architecture. Do you believe that Toronto is similar to Ontario? There’s definitely a percieved lack of “culture” in America but to believe it’s ubiquitous is just hilarious
Um … Isn’t Toronto in Ontario?
Whatever, he’s on a roll.
We’re just not well travelled enough to know :(.
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.
There’s a lot more to culture than architecture.
The countries are all huge. They are more alike one another at their borders than they are similar to themselves throughout.
The same applies to Germany and Austria, which aren’t that huge
It isn’t always about the size.
so for example, Ontario is similar to Oklahoma and Coahuila is similar to Texas, that would be a new point of view!!
No I mean people in Vancouver and people in Nova Scotia are more culturally distinct than Nova Scotians and folks from Maine.
Same applies to Mexicali and Calexico. Very similar. But Mexicali isn’t a whole lot like Savanah Georgia.
Space separates culture more effectively than invisible lines.
You know Oklahoma doesn’t border Canada right?
Not yet!
I know but Oklahoma gives me that vibe, it sounds like a Canadian place, I love Oklahoma of course.
I’m really confused by what metric Oklahoma gives off a Canadian vibe other than the name sounding like it according to you. It most likely sounds like it to you because it is a Native American word.
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 because, as I see it, they don’t want black people to have it.
Feel free to ask anything.
We have more progressive things like universal healthcare, decent public education. The US really seems intent on not having those because, as I see it, they don’t want black people to have it.
The American k-12 education system is varied in quality based on the municipality.
Which is ironically part of the problem. Rich parts want to keep their tax money for their education. Poor parts get nothing.
Where I am all the schools are funded by the province and funded the same.
woa Mexico has those things too of course!! It’s interesting, I guess the country in the middle (USA) is really different, and all of those things must be universal, otherwise most people will have their lives shorten drastically which is very bad!!
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.
Eh I don’t know. I’m from Canada and I live in the USA right now. Most places in Canada that I’ve experienced are completely car dependent, and there’s only a few cities with big transit systems? Where I live now has incredible transit compared to where I was in Canada and people here complain far more about transit than they did in Canada (probably in part because people actually use it). The cities that I’ve lived in definitely give a bit of a biased perspective, though.
It’s hard to say which is really more car dependent. There are more larger cities in the US and more with decent transit infrastructure compared to Canada, but maybe per capita or per city Canada would win because there’s a lot of Midwest and the US has a higher population? If I was picking a place to live and transit was the only consideration, though, I would probably pick the USA over Canada because there’s more cities to choose from and more rail.
You compare cities of the same size. You don’t compare Toronto to NYC.
I mean it really depends on what you’re measuring to compare car dependence. Is it number of people who have to drive every day? Number of cities where most of the population has to drive every day? Are you comparing transit infrastructure on equivalently sized cities (and then is the size by population, or do you compare cities of the same density…). If you’re looking at how many people across the country need a car, NYC is very relevant. Realistically this is something that mostly makes sense to compare by city rather than by country (obviously the country has influence over transit, but that’s not really the point).
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?
So here’s the thing. The whole west coast of NA, including california, oregon, washington, and BC are considered to be super liberal areas. This is true by a majority of the population, but all of these regions are still filled with people who are as conservative as any other rural area in the US. It’s just that in those regions, more people populate the large cities than the rural areas.
Really, conservatism reigns in poorer, less educated, and more isolated regions with low population and without diversity, where tribalism can run rampant; it’s easy to be a racist shitbag if you barely meet anyone with a different skin color than you. Liberalism thrives in regions with diverse populations where in order to live we have to cooperate with others.
I live in Portland, Oregon. People tend to think oregon is a blue state wonderland (except during covid and the floyd protests. then apparently the whole city was on fire and in a state of complete anarchy; spoiler— it totally wasn’t). That’s not the case. We just have enough people in large cities to outnumber the racist cuntballoons in the rural areas. And that’s what the whole west coast is like (and basically every “blue state” in the US)
Western Canada is a lot like western USA. Filled with shart-gargling racists/homophobes/transphobes, but outnumbered by people who aren’t pieces of shit.
west coast (and especially PNW) culture is just “we kinda outnumber them slightly”, but the overall issue comes down to: in rural/conservative areas, it’s easy to be racist/homophobic/transphobic/other-religions-phobic, because you never have to consider anyone’s feelings that hurt your worldview because you don’t know them personally and do not consider them to be human on the same level as you.
I like how you casually equated conservatives with being a racist shitbag.
I’m sure you’ve developed your “rural people are racist shitbags” concept from all the small, sub-dunbar communities you’ve visited in your extensive survey of US culture.
As everyone knows, tribalism survives best in areas where everyone knows each other, and fails in big cities of millions. Because having strangers surrounding you every day makes the tribalism go away.
Removed by mod
Coastal BC west of the cascades is very similar to Puget Sound region and Portland. Anywhere east of Whistler and Chilliwack is much more rural religious and conservative, similar to central and eastern Washington. Another cultural oddity about inland BC - Kelowna and Kamloops have some of the most violent and active Hells Angels chapters.
(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”)
Alberta seems a lot more like Texas culturally and economically and also politically
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 hope there would be rioting in the streets if some government tried to straight up kill our public health care system.
Unfortunately, it’s currently showing the strain of being attacked by a thousand cuts.
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.
Mexico is rich too, they have a similar economy to Canada.
I assumed Mexico was poor, but after looking it up I see you’re right. They’re very close. But their GDP per capita is much worse, and their income gap is muuuuch worse (though not as bad as the USA).
So Mexicans are poorer and the rule of law is extremely different. So I think the wealth and crime aspects bring USA and Canada closer together. Plus being mostly Anglo.
Maybe the USA bridges those two worlds by ranging from nearly-arctic to literal deserts, and having extreme wealth inequality. But USA and Canada are children of the British empire and prime examples of the western capitalist lifestyle.
Mexico is western too and capitalist!!
People often mean “white” when they say Western
Isn’t it very dangerous and partly ruled by the cartels? I know very little about Mexico.
not right now, there are places that can be dangerous but that happens in all countries!!
Are we allowed to answer for the other thirty North American countries?
yes of course!! I was talking about the two countries that surround United States!!
So not including any island nations ? Pretty sure they all have universal health care
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.
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.
The point here is that despite having some of the most well defined borders in the world, the North American trio are basically just a set of siblings in a spectrum from largely indigenous central Americans in the south of Mexico to the last flickers of Maritime Canadian Gaelge in Nova Scotia to Anchorage probably being one of the sneakily most important cities in the world geopolitically, and with infinite multitudes of spectrums between.
Two sibling eagles and their little sister jay who’s smarter than the both of them.
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.
you’re correct!! I love those countries, there are beautiful people in any country and we don’t need stereotypes, I would love to visit United States someday, at least I’m used to a semi-american experience because there are plenty of american supermarkets, restaurants, etc, here. Plus I know english woa!! Also I was fortunate enough to being born in Mexico because there is HEB here. And americans only have it on Texas, take care and treat people alright!!
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.
I think yes we are all more similar than different but as you move north, there is less income inequality and better social services, less graft and corruption.
Supermarkets in the US are like nowhere else, they are incredible.
Supermarkets in the US are like nowhere else
Umm, we have the same stores here in Mexico. Lol Like, they’re stocked to the brim and huge.
But I will say that I like shopping malls better in Mexico. They feel more authentic, more stylish in a way, and unique to one another. Midwest shopping malls seemed so bland to me for some reason and they all followed the same layout and used similar construction materials.
Also, I’m not sure about “better social services”. They’re not exactly bad and they are comprehensive. We get plenty of good social services down here. For example, our Senate just passed a bill to create free universal healthcare for pets today that we already had for free or at low cost in other ways. We’re no strangers to varying degrees of socialism.
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.
Yeah Mexican mass killings are often more ritualistic than mere shootings.
Big differences.
Even regionally in the US. I’ve been in all 50 states, all the southern provinces in Canada and Nova Scotia, Mexico, all over the Caribbean (that’s not continental NA, but the islands are in the area), and Yucatán.
Canada is probably pretty close to how generically we view the US, things work similarly, however you can see facets of the social governance poking through in a lot of places you’d never see in the US. Housing, Union work rules, and I personally find the politeness a little on the rigid formal side compared to the US’s impersonal friendliness. Also, IMO Canadians have higher expectations and are a bit more rigid in public interaction and don’t mind telling you to GTFO of the way if you’re doing something like blocking a walkway. Not rudely at all, just move over please you’re blocking the path.
Mexico varies wildly IMO. Very much more regional. Some of the cities that have lots of manufacturing are pretty cool, lots of stuff to do and relatively inexpensive, modern. Go to some of the mountainous less traveled areas and you get a lot more poverty and run down areas. People are generally still super nice, but you definitely know they’re not too used to foreigners. Metro areas like Mexico City are wild. Big disparity on display, plenty of wealth, plenty of poverty. Every modern thing you could think of like any other city. One thing about being a white guy traveling is that I got heckled by sellers and panhandlers in touristy areas, and they can be straight up assholes.
Yucatán is much more dependent on tourist money. Plenty of nice people, plenty of people just want your $. More rural. I only visited the coast there. Too many all-inclusive resorts just there for getting people drunk and corralling them for $.
The Caribbean…a LOT of poverty. Especially places like Haiti/DR. I think American’s would be shocked at the poverty in their backyard if they actually thought about it. As always, people are people, and there are lots of good people, but I definitely experienced prejudice in the Caribbean. Not just “you’re a foreigner” different, but “we don’t like whitey” different. You get treated differently, you’re often just a mark for tourist $, and people can definitely let you know you don’t belong. Americans just treat the Caribbean like a giant Senior Frog’s, they just go to demand drinks, get drunk and lay around in the sun.
The US, funny enough, can be all of these things. We’ve got plenty of serious poverty, plenty of resorts, lots of touristy areas, etc. Any place that has lots of people coming and going is going to be pretty similar. Metro areas, burbs, and bedroom towns. Get out in the plains towns and more rural areas and you definitely stand out if you’re not local, and I’ve lost count on how many times I been asked a variant of “why are you here?” But it’s nicely worded like “what brings you to town?” West coast is more superficial, indifferent and generically friendly. South is very friendly and doesn’t understand why you don’t go to church or why you don’t live there. Heaven help you if you’re from a “yankee” state or someplace liberal. That might be met with only half-joking comments about your history.
Plains states…man, I felt hopeless in the rural areas. There’s a lot of almost toxic pride in being local, in farming, ranching, whatever. But that’s all there is for some people and it’s almost like Stockholm syndrome. They can’t leave, so there’s a resigned pride in their situation and you’d better agree with it. The ones that can get out, do. Get to the smaller towns in the north central part of the country (Montana and the like) and you might actually be met with some hostility depending what the situation is. They don’t want you moving there like the rich people that have taken over in places like Jackson Hole. All that said, most people are decent regardless of the situation.
PNW is pretty chill and indifferent. Big mix of deep rural and urban attitudes.
East coast? Know what you want, know where you’re going, or get the fuck out of the way. Not that people are necessarily rude, it’s just that they got shit to do and if you’re slowing them down they’ll let you know it. Never found anyone that wasn’t wouldn’t help out though if you needed directions or something. Unfortunately there can be a steep cultural divide between poverty and the rest of the financial classes and that comes out socially as well.
The more rural states reject the metro attitudes to the extreme (like Maine, NH, etc. or even rural NY) where they haven’t been overrun by metro weekenders or people trying to dodge higher taxes. Decent people, just kinda wary of you being a “Masshole” or something.
YMMV, kinda hard to sum up whole countries and regions in a Reddit post. Just my experiences.
Nice write up. One question, did you mean lemmy* post?
I did! Old habits…
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!!
