Why do you think north america is so developed?
Answers
There are several things that one can point to and it is likely that a combination of these factors has worked to make North America highly developed than any single factor:
The United States was settled where it mattered by citizens of largely Protestant Northern European polities. They brought several key things with them and thereby had a direct pathway to development.
Among the first benefits of their northern European heritage was the rule of law. From the beginning, the continent (here I include Canada and the USA) has been governed by laws, by legal systems modeled on the British common law system of precedents and averse to a system of petty crime like bribery or extortion.
From the very beginning, the continent established the practice of recording deeds and ownership. While this was an idea that pushed the undeeded aboriginal inhabitants from traditional lands (eventually leading to treaties), it did establish a pattern of clear ownership. The work of Preuvian economist, Hernan de Soto Polar, makes the simple point that nations lacking clear ownership documentation fail to develop beyond a certain level.
North America has the blessing of both massive tracts of tillable land and the energy and natural resources to be relatively independent. These factors allow the continent to export the excess production to the rest of the world.
There has not been a major war fought on the continent since 1865. While Europe has suffered through two world wars, has been divided by an Iron Curtain, and seen flare-ups and civil wars in places like Spain and Balkans, the USA and Canada have not been a theater for war.
Both Canada and the USA are largely democratic and have been almost since their founding. They have strong trading relationships with other democracies, at least before Donald Trump, and have not depended on autocracies for trade support.
They are primarily culturally homogeneous outside of francophone Canada. They play the same sports, watch many of the same television programs, and have a border that, while stronger than it once was, allows for free access by citizens of each country. Yesterday, while shopping at a store in Northern Minnesota, I counted license plates in a parking lot and discovered that 60% were from Ontario.
Despite the relative youth of North America, its lack of impediments to growth has made it seem like an older culture.