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How many people in Toronto were likely born in Toronto or have many generations of roots here?

Yeah, Canadians don't seem to move between regions as much as Americans. I'd imagine it'd be less common for say, someone to move from Atlantic Canada to the BC Coast, than say the Northeast US to California. I'd imagine more smaller scale moves within regions for Canadians being common, like from other parts of Southern Ontario to Toronto, or from say, Victoria to the Lower Mainland.
 
Though impossible to obtain such actual information, I was just wondering about whether or not the average American or Canadian citizen has moved a greater distance within his or her lifetime, if you considered all the moves summed up.

Americans probably make many more moves between states and regions within the country which would add up many more miles, than the more local moves (say, within the GTA) and less common cross-country moves (eg. Toronto to Vancouver) that Canadians do. In youth too, more Americans, when attending college/university, tend to choose to go farther away from the place they grew up, such as going "out-of-state", which is something less common for Canadians. Big cities, industries with opportunities are spread out more in the US, leading to probably more people moving while switching work, while Canadians in a big city like Toronto or Montreal probably stick around more.

On the other hand, if you count the fact that there are more foreign-born Canadians than foreign born Americans, chances are a Canadian is more likely themselves, or to have family that crossed an ocean from their place of birth/youth (which adds more mileage). More foreign-born Canadians (eg. many from China, India, the Caribbean) probably came far from their birthplace, compared to foreign-born Americans since a major proportion came from a neighbouring country, Mexico. Also a greater number of people themselves even if Canadian-born have probably lived outside Canada in say, the US. I think since Canadians are more likely than Americans to have lived in a foreign country (whether as an immigrant or expat), this could even out (or possibly even surpass?) the score with Americans' more widespread internal migration.

Just a thought experiment that would be really hard to test with data, but I thought it'd be a cool idea.
 
Another thought I had on Canadians vs. Americans, if not Torontonians specifically. A lot has been said about why Canadian identity is so loose, relative to the stronger identity of our neighbour.
I wonder if Americans moving more within their own country but not outside of it as much actually helps strengthen national identity, perhaps emphasizing the unity of the states.

Maybe it's just me but I feel like internal movements within the US feature much more prominently in the national consciousness too (eg. Westward frontier, the Mormon migration, African-American Great Migration, even the much more recent moves from rustbelt to sunbelt) than for Canadians. In more recent times we talk about the Anglophones from Montreal moving to Toronto, or Ontarians that moved to Alberta when oil was lucrative, but I feel like patterns of migration from outside the country into it actually seem to feature more prominently in our history (eg. United Empire Loyalists, Underground Railroad, the Klondike Gold Rush, all of which involve Americans moving to Canada, the immigrant homesteaders and the Last Best West etc.). Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but perhaps the fact that Americans are more likely to share a history of internal migration with other Americans, regardless of what state they reside in now, while Canadians may have had ancestry/family from outside Canada more recently than the history they share with another Canadian in another province is responsible for explaining not only a looser Canadian identity but a somewhat more open-minded stance on outsiders/immigrants more broadly and willingness to accept new Canadians as "one of us" (eg. lack of "birtherism", attitudes on Syrian refugees). Perhaps maybe historians or other social scientists who have studied this would have more to say on this.
 
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On the other hand, if you count the fact that there are more foreign-born Canadians than foreign born Americans, chances are a Canadian is more likely themselves, or to have family that crossed an ocean from their place of birth/youth (which adds more mileage)

Huh? Did you mean that as a percentage of the population because there is something like 40 Million foreign born people in the USA; many do not (yet) have citizenship.
 
I think I may have everyone in this thread beat.

I am ninth generation Torontonian.

Not just Canadian, but Torontonian. My grandma and I traced our roots back 9 generations. She was 7th, my dad was 8th, I'm 9th and if I have a child he will be 10th. Not bad eh? :)

It may sound weird, but I have a crazy visceral connection to this city that all my friends make fun of. I feel like this is MY city. I get homesick when I travel anywhere, and as much as I like a trip I get super excited when I land back in Toronto. I think this city is literally in my blood.
 
I was born in Toronto but my parents are from Hong Kong. My husband is from Ottawa.
 
I think I may have everyone in this thread beat.

I am ninth generation Torontonian.

Not just Canadian, but Torontonian. My grandma and I traced our roots back 9 generations. She was 7th, my dad was 8th, I'm 9th and if I have a child he will be 10th. Not bad eh? :)

It may sound weird, but I have a crazy visceral connection to this city that all my friends make fun of. I feel like this is MY city. I get homesick when I travel anywhere, and as much as I like a trip I get super excited when I land back in Toronto. I think this city is literally in my blood.
How far back is that; 1600s/1700s? I'm 3rd generation, myself.
 
My mother was born on Toronto islands in 1917 and my grandfather was a Toronto fire captain.
 

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