AREUEA membership spans both the United States and Canada and there is a tendency to homogenize real estate and urban economics into a “North American” cauldron. However, Canadian and American real estate markets, and the cities within which they operate, differ in fundamental ways. If we are to develop appropriate means for analyzing real estate and financial markets in these two countries it is imperative that we understand the underlying differences between American and Canadian cities. This paper sets out in summary form some of the differences that have been identified to date, differences that relate not only to the cities in the two nations, but to the broader cultural and institutional underpinnings as w