" Yet respondents states that Canadians dislike America on a whole more since Obama took office than before, and that Canadians feel less safe visiting the US than before."Funny you mention that. I just took a train tonight from Vancouver Canada, to Seattle WA. The difference between the two places for night and day, and what you just said sums it up perfectly.
When I got on the train on the Canadian side, the streets are bustling with activity, they're also clean. Homelessness is a problem, but overall the city is kept in good shape and business is booming. The train station is old, but kept in good repair, with many travellers milling about.
I get off the train in Seattle and I see a crumbling train station that can't even afford to replace its light bulbs. The moment I walk out the door I am accosted by a group of homeless folk. I am yet accosted by more homeless folk as I make my way to the bus stop. As I ride the bus downtown the streets are deserted, there's homeless folk everywhere, people picking fights in streets... it's like a bad 80s dystopian movie come to life. It reminds me of Demolition Man without the open firefights in the streets. I've lived here for several months now and I do not feel safe walking these streets at night. Hell, sometimes I don't feel safe walking these streets in broad daylight. There's garbage everywhere, poverty at levels I could not even imagine before moving from Canada. There are shootings in my neighbourhood weekly. People I've mentioned this to blame me for living downtown, and imply that this comes with living in an urban centre. I call bullshit: I've lived downtown in 3 different Canadian cities, and none were anywhere this bad. One is also much larger and denser than this one.
I've only been to a handful of other American cities - but if Seattle is the best you've got (and by national rankings it's pretty far up the list of good cities), you guys have a big, big, big problem.