Why Is There No Major City Across the Border from Detroit?

First things first, this is not a slam on Windsor, Ontario. It's a wonderful city. The question is simply why a similarly sized metro area to Detroit did not spring up on the north/west side of the Detroit River.

The question came up on a Reddit forum dedicated to geography and asked, Why doesn't the Canadian side of Detroit have a similar sized city?

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Here's the population size comparison. The Detroit metro area has roughly 4 million people with about 600,000 in the city proper. Windsor is home to just a fraction of that number with just over 200,000.

Perhaps it's interesting to realize that there is no match for a neighboring metropolis anywhere along the US/Canadian border. Starting in the west, Vancouver, British Columbia is home to metro population of an estimated 3 million people. Across the border is Blane, Washington: population 6,000.

The Sault Ste Maries? A metro on a smaller scale but still disproportionate. Soo, Ontario is home to more than 70,000 while Soo, Michigan (the little Soo as they call it on the Canadian side) is right around 12,000.

Buffalo, New York is much larger than Fort Erie, Ontario, while Niagara Falls, Ontario dwarfs Niagara Falls, New York.

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So when it comes to Detroit and Windsor, why did the population growth not mirror each other on the respective sides of the border? It may come down to land use and history. From the Reddit thread:

That part of Ontario around Windsor is rich farmland & it's farmed. We get good tomatoes from that part of Ontario.

This I believe is the real answer. Most southern point of Canada, with good climate and land for growing. Huge greenhouse industry with a lot of investment.

And the historical perspective:

The real reason is that the Detroit side of the river was first settled by the French in the 1700s. The Detroit River was a natural boundary that over time prevented further settlement South. And the border between Ontario and Michigan was established by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which solidified that border.

While Detroit served as a major shipping route for the US, the region was not used by Canada/Britain for the same purpose as that was primarily in the Quebec city and Montreal area. So you got lots of development into a city on the US side by no such correlating economic pressures on the Canada side.

Whatever the reason, it's likely that Detroit will always have a little sibling across the border in Windsor and they're going to keep making pizza how they want to there.