OK, so the distribution is a bit better than I thought.
That still doesn’t change my mind that these places are not prime targets (seems everyone is anxious to prove their place is prime target material - or at least, as in PC world, all places are equal), neither Vancouver nor Minneapolis.
Doesn’t mean the jerk-offs wouldn’t do it just for fun; it’s just not bloody likely to be high on their priority lists.
It’s clear in the US the prime targets are DC and New York. It should be intuitively obvious why, regardless of 9/11. They were pretty smart and went beyond even just population matters never mind symbols, although those are part of it.
Vancouver: major port and financial centre.
Edmonton: key staging area for oil and gas production and exploration.
Calgary: business and financial centre for the oilpatch in Canada (the USA’s single largest trade partner, BTW).
Nope, not significant at all. Until the oil stops because someone blew something crucial up.
Piling on. From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest
“Most of the population of the Pacific Northwest is concentrated in the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland corridor. This area is sometimes seen as a megacity (also known as a conurbation, an agglomeration, or a megalopolis). This megacity stretches along Interstate 5 in the states of Oregon and Washington and BC 99 in the province of British Columbia. As of 2004, the combined populations of the Greater Vancouver Lower Mainland, the Seattle metropolitan area and the Portland metropolitan area totaled almost nine million people.”
> That still doesn’t change my mind that these places are not prime targets (seems everyone is anxious to prove their place is prime target material - or at least, as in PC world, all places are equal), neither Vancouver nor Minneapolis.
To a large extent, Vancouver has an economy that is immune to the rest of Canada: it keeps generating wealth for the nation no matter what. If Vancouver were to be severely crippled, the Canadian economy would be seriously rooted for a very long time.
The rest of Canada has, for a very long time due to transfer payments, existed off the wealth generated by provinces west of Ontario (BC natural resources, agriculture, fishing, timber, technology and finance; Alberta oil and grain crops; Saskatchewan and Manitoba grain crops), and the three territories north (oil, gas, diamonds, gold, natural resources).
The fact that political power is grossly concentrated in Ontario, Quebec and the maritime provinces is an accident of history. One day this will be addressed if Canada is to remain politically stable.
To suggest that Vancouver is not a major North American city (and thus a juicy target) is just plain nonsense. One recent visit there would tell you otherwise.
*DieHard*