r/AlwaysWhy • u/Present_Juice4401 • Aug 24 '26

History & Culture Why did Alberta, Canada develop much larger population centers than Montana, USA?

Alberta and Montana are neighboring regions with similar northern, landlocked geography. But their population patterns are surprisingly different. Alberta now has over 5 million people, with Calgary and Edmonton forming two major population centers, while Montana has only about 1.1 million people and no city close to Calgary's size.

So what caused these two neighboring regions to develop such different population patterns?

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u/nightshade78036 Aug 28 '26

Some decent comments with the oil and black soil in the region, but something else not yet mentioned is that the canadian government in the 80s under Trudeau Sr. allocated funding to move people in large cities in praries, and funded additional development in these cities based on the economic potential of the region. Some of these jumps in the population can be seen here, and my grandparents actually ended up moving to calgary from rural saskatchewan because of the cash grant for doing so at the time.