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I think we need to define what cosmopolitan is in connection with this thread.
I already defined what cosmopolitan is in the context of the comparison I want for this thread; race, nationalities, ethnicities, languages, religion, so on and so forth. You know factors that denote the origins of people, their background, their beliefs (religion).
I also stated in the opening post that things like high culture, economical drivers that influence the global economy, political and geopolitical factors, cultural innovations, and things of that like are also definitely apart of the cosmopolitan fold but I also made it clear in the OP that we will disregard those more subjective and hard to verify factors in this thread. Simple for that reason, they are subjective factors.
Objectively you cannot really say an entire city takes "museums" for example, because there are many types of museums and that city likely doesn't take every category of them. Boston, for example, can have a better Holocaust Museum than Washington, but Washington a better history one than Boston. Another thing, we cannot even definitely say which city has which type of museum that is better because it would only be our opinion and not fact. While we can identify areas of strength, we do not have the information and objective data to broadly sweep and generalize to the point of saying "Washington is a better museum city than Boston". Because I feel we are not honest enough to have comparisons with subjective factors such as those, I excluded them from this thread.
So I took out the subjective factors to cosmopolitanism and left only the ones we can measure. Don't see what the problem here is, like I said, if people want a different topic then they can make their own. I've already outlined the one for this thread and it wont be changing.
Last edited by Trafalgar Law; 03-06-2016 at 03:50 PM..
I already defined what cosmopolitan is in the context of the comparison I want for this thread; race, nationalities, ethnicities, languages, religion, so on and so forth.
This is something that I think is pretty easy to measure and you've done a splendid job with it thus far. I'm impressed and I'm glad I shared the link to the NHS and Statscan with you. As I mentioned, stay tuned to their 2016 census - its coming soon. We're using 2011 data for the GGH. I think you have managed to open a lot of eyes with respect to how diverse the Golden Horsehoe is and for that I commend you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
I also stated in the opening post that things like high culture, economical drivers that influence the global economy, political and geopolitical factors, cultural innovations, and things of that like are also definitely apart of the cosmopolitan fold but I also made it clear in the OP that we will disregard those more subjective and hard to verify factors in this thread. Simple for that reason, they are subjective factors.
I get it but i'm not really sure its as easy to find objective sources for these factors as much as diversity, percentage of F.B, number of language spoken etc. This one is tougher to keep on the rails. I'll try to be a good boy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Objectively you cannot really say an entire city takes "museums" for example, because there are many types of museums and that city likely doesn't take every category of them. Boston, for example, can have a better Holocaust Museum than Washington, but Washington a better history one than Boston. While we can identify areas of strength, we do not have the information and objective data to broadly sweep and generalize to the point of saying "Washington is a better museum city than Boston". Because I feel we are not honest enough to have comparisons with subjective factors such as those, I excluded them from this thread.
Completely agree. Toronto has the Aga Khan Museum and its the largest in N.A dedicated to Islamic art and culture. It is an example of the cosmopolitan nature of Toronto and is directly reflective of its diversity but on its own can't be used to objectively prove Toronto is more cosmopolitan than city x.
A link for those interested and headed to Toronto in the near future.
I get it but i'm not really sure its as easy to find objective sources for these factors as much as diversity, percentage of F.B, number of language spoken etc. This one is tougher to keep on the rails.
There aren't any objective data for what museums are better or what art galleries are better. There aren't objective data for what institutions of higher culture are better, the closest things are visitor numbers and institution budgets and they don't really answer the question of "quality" showpieces. They just answer how many people are viewing and how much you're spending; which is not entirely objective because you don't have to be a big spender to have quality stuff nor do you need 5 million visitors to be a worthwhile museum. Technically, lets use Prada versus Target as an example. Maybe only 100,000 people shop at a Prada store for sunglasses a year, whereas the Target across the street alone sells 150,000 sunglasses a year. Which one is better? The one getting more people or the one renown for its quality product?
We can only use our own judgement on those topics, which is what makes them entirely subjective. Some people can run the theory that one artist is better than the other, another can make the argument that art from a particular place or time period is more valuable to have than another. These are strictly subjective sentiments that cannot ever be verified.
Yes, sometimes the quality aspects to some things are very "in your face". Like the Smithsonian, for example, it is regarded as one of the best museums in America and for its part, it is because of what it signifies, has, and institutionalized but it is not always so clear cut. Not every museum has the "in your face" accolades of the Smithsonian and it is very hard to tier them in with others.
I disregard every list of best museum or art gallery or anything else. At the end of the day, that list is one guys opinion, the guy that published that list and issued it. His opinion. Not mine. If he was into dinosaurs, then he may have liked a particular museum more than I may have. We cannot measure these things either way and because we cannot, we have to rely on being mature and understanding of other people's arguments in regards to these things. City-Data completely lacks that feature, for the most part, in my opinion. So I opted to exclude those topics.
Diversity data is objective. We know what we do and have numbers that we do because our governments, funneled by our tax dollars, have agencies that are administered with the responsibility to measuring those things. Measuring things like race, like ethnicity, like nationality, like religion, like language. Their word is the law of the land, no one will have diversity statistics for any country better than that country's census agency. Which is what makes them easy to work with discussion topics.
Subjective factors? Nahhh, not really. You have to be able to trust the other person, that what they are saying is accurate and for the betterment of the discussion overall. I don't have that level of trust though.
Last edited by Trafalgar Law; 03-06-2016 at 04:14 PM..
Yes - which art museums are better, and how it corresponds to contributing to the cosmpolitanism of where it is, is another story/subjective.
As an example, you could use the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago (it is actually a museum about the ancient middle east/NE Africa). In its circles it's pretty well regarded, but most of the people of Chicago don't even know it exists. They do lectures and events, but it's not really involving much more than just part of the University. Does it contribute much the cosmpolitanism of the city? Not a ton. You could compare it to something like the National Museum of Mexican Art in the city though, which involves the community a little more and you could make the case that even though the museum isn't as well regarded, it still does more to contribute to the cosmpolitanism of the city.
Of course diversity data is objective, but as I've said before - there is more data that can be retrieved that tells the entire story. The actual segregation/integration is one such piece of data which would expand the story to what I've been saying. The data Red John posted is ACS data from the census, and they most likely took this at a lower level like the census tract level. You can put that into a model and see the integration/segregation for most groups (i.e. is group X more integrated than group Y in a particular city?) which then would tell you about their exposure to/from other groups.
Brown University actually took the 2010 United States Census information and made a integration and segregation index (assimilation index) for every metropolitan area and/or city in the country.
You can get the information on residential segregation, race-related segreation (I.E. White-Black, White-Asian, White-Latino, so on), school segregation, and income segregation. Unfortunately we cannot measure the segregation levels between say, an Irish and a Moroccan, because that would be ethnic segregation and we don't have that information available to us (that I know of) but we have race, income, residential, and school segregation at least.
I love credible sources. Sources that are primary, like government sites such as the census, such as bureau of economic analysis, such as bureau of labor statistics. If not, love sources that have their information straight from the most accurate possible source. In the case of Brown University, their direct source being the United States census bureau.
You can get the information on residential segregation, race-related segreation (I.E. White-Black, White-Asian, White-Latino, so on), school segregation, and income segregation. Unfortunately we cannot measure the segregation levels between say, an Irish and a Moroccan, because that would be ethnic segregation and we don't have that information available to us (that I know of) but we have race, income, residential, and school segregation at least.
Although Brown didn't do it, you could do it if you know their methodology. I have quite a bit of experience with census tract/census block group level data and am pretty sure you could get it at that level. Though we have to realize that this data is from the ACS which is a 5-10% sample, and not a 100% sample.
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I love credible sources. Sources that are primary, like government sites such as the census, such as bureau of economic analysis, such as bureau of labor statistics. If not, love sources that have their information straight from the most accurate possible source. In the case of Brown University, their direct source being the United States census bureau.
Yep, though you have to read through their methodology. Like anything scientific that needs and wants to be taken seriously, it's reviewed by a host of different people and organizations. One of my favorite things is when people automatically assume a study is correct, because it's presented as a study. It might be, but there's a reason why things are reviewed in the scientific community by outside sources and sometimes given a lot of scrutiny.
Since it's Brown, I'm sure they did this though - I hope. Any chance you have the link to anything analyzing their methodologies? Since it's an index, there was thought on their end to go into it on which things were weighted more heavily than others, which were more serious, etc. It would be interesting to see what the comments were about it from people who have been doing this for a living for decades.
What an arrogant post. TBH if its getting into a comparison with you i'll pass and save it for someone more objective and open minded.
Look, that's not what this thread is--my response was about other threads comparing cosmopolitanism between Toronto and Chicago and how those shakedown on a broad level outside of population diversity. The basic retread of that argument in regards to cultural institutions is really simple and this thread doesn't ask for it.
To keep this tangent short-ish:
- Performing arts institutions such as opera, ballet, and orchestras is going to go to Chicago because they established themselves early on with a great reputation from back in those boom days when philanthropic money poured into such institutions. Toronto wasn't a big player back then which explains why cities much smaller like Cleveland in the case of orchestras can have commonly recognized better institutions. Who attracts the top players? Among people in the field, how do people generally rank one company over the other. In these regards, the rankings in regards to general tiers is pretty straightforward. Trying to specifically put exact ranks is a lot murkier but this isn't something where it's ever been close enough for there to be any reasonable belief that Toronto's are better than Chicago's. Maybe this will change in the future as Toronto continues to grow.
- When it comes to museums, it's mostly about their collections, and it's similar to the case with performing arts institutions in that cities that were larger and more prosperous than Toronto in the early 20th century had the ability to acquire works at the time they were being produced and were much cheaper to acquire and a lot less competition for the work of already deceased old masters as philanthropists in then burgeoning US cities were among the primary purchasers and competition for a limited supply of art wasn't as fierce. To build up comparable collections today requires ridiculous amounts of funding compared to a century or so ago and the only major areas that are attempting to do so now are Shanghai and a couple of the Arab Gulf Coast cities/states. That's compounded for works of art and design from antiquity with not just the constrained supply meeting with increased competition among prominent cities around the world as well as a move from the standard operating procedure when artifacts were basically plundered (so kudos to Toronto for not having massively engaged in that). Those days are gone and Toronto wasn't riding too high back in those days, so there's not much to discuss here and explains why a college museum like the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago has such a ridiculously massive and deep collection. Again, these are just the facts.
- In regards to higher education, some of the previous rationale applies in regards to the period of philanthropy and being able to ride on the good name of historic institutions, but you can also just look up rankings. University of Toronto does well--University of Chicago has and continues to do better. Northwestern generally places around the same University of Toronto. Art Institute of Chicago does great.
There's not much to argue on an overall basis for these things and it doesn't require arrogance. However, this topic is focused on diversity, especially with a concentration on foreign-born residents as per the OP's request and Toronto is pretty assuredly above Chicago in this respect. You can argue about ethnic distribution based on just bucket category of races only and kind of try to argue that Chicago is more diverse than Toronto on that end, but that seems to be almost equally pointless as the cultural institutions argument because you really have to piece together a lot of specific criteria favoring Chicago and ignore a lot of overall truths in order to arrive at a conclusion that Chicago is more cosmopolitan in regards to this topic than Toronto.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-06-2016 at 05:27 PM..
Look Oy, you have narrowed your field of view with respect to what is important to you re cultural institutions. What I was trying to impress upon you is that I think you should have a more rounded and complete view about what makes up a cultural institution. It goes beyond what you wrote above (which actually is very good). The problem is, you are so focussed on a limited range of things because there is so much more to cultural institutions than that. If you narrow it down to a list that favours a city, sure it will most likely come on top. That wasn't what I was getting at in my posts because I was thinking about cultural institutions from a much broader perspective than that.
So what have we learned? Not much really, that Toronto tops the list in paper diversity. Great to see it demonstrated and Red John did a good job with that but it doesn't surprise any poster in here from T.O that it tops this list in terms of diversity, it doesn't surprise us at all even when we use five year old data. It won't surprise us this year when Statscan releases its 2016 stats and it won't surprise us 5 years from now, 10 years from now etc etc. We also learned what, that Chicago has more important 'legacy' institutions with respect to its culture.. Is this surprising, no but in my view there is more to culture than what some people focus on. As a matter of fact, it was other posters who started getting into High culture and legacy institutions once it was clear to them that in the diversity arena, Toronto would come out on top.
Look Oy, you have narrowed your field of view with respect to what is important to you re cultural institutions. What I was trying to impress upon you is that I think you should have a more rounded and complete view about what makes up a cultural institution. It goes beyond what you wrote above (which actually is very good). The problem is, you are so focussed on a limited range of things because there is so much more to cultural institutions than that. If you narrow it down to a list that favours a city, sure it will most likely come on top. That wasn't what I was getting at in my posts because I was thinking about cultural institutions from a much broader perspective than that.
So what have we learned? Not much really, that Toronto tops the list in paper diversity. Great to see it demonstrated and Red John did a good job with that but it doesn't surprise any poster in here from T.O that it tops this list in terms of diversity, it doesn't surprise us at all even when we use five year old data. It won't surprise us this year when Statscan releases its 2016 stats and it won't surprise us 5 years from now, 10 years from now etc etc. We also learned what, that Chicago has more important 'legacy' institutions with respect to its culture.. Is this surprising, no but in my view there is more to culture than what some people focus on. As a matter of fact, it was other posters who started getting into High culture and legacy institutions once it was clear to them that in the diversity arena, Toronto would come out on top.
I mean those cultural institutions specifically because of the limited terms of what cosmopolitan can mean:
- One is in terms of diversity/being from all parts of the world
- The other is closer to being urbane or sophisticated.
The argument in terms of cultural institutions, if you're going to go by rankings of these institutions, is then obviously the latter. On those terms, Chicago (and DC) are very heavily favored especially against Toronto and that comes with pretty direct reasons for not just why that is but also how that came to be--there is simply no argument on that ground.
If you want to argue the former and applying that marker to just cultural institutions, then I think that's a very different argument and not what I've been discussing. Sure, it's possible there may or may not be a larger variety of higher education institutions in Toronto with more diverse student bodies, but that doesn't strike me as an interesting argument in terms of comparing cultural institutions.
CSA
County, State/ Percent Foreign Born/ Average Family Income where both spouses work: $150,000+ in bold red
Chicago CSA
Cook, IL 20.9%...$141,696
DuPage, IL 19.0%...$144,980 Lake, IL 19.0%...$160,998
Kane, IL 18.2%...$129,524
Will, IL 11.7%...$133,710
McHenry, IL 9.7%...$128,068
Lake, IN 7.0%...$98,953
Kendall, IN 6.9%...NO DATA
DeKalb, IL 6.8%...$105,617
Kenosha, WI 5.7%...$111,823
Kankakee, IL 5.1%...$95,815
Porter, IN 4.4%...$109,046
LaPorte, IN 3.9%...$93,955
LaSalle, IL 2.7%...$91,907
Bay Area CSA Santa Clara, CA 38.3%...$199,178
San Mateo, CA 35.4%...$209,193
San Francisco, CA 34.4%...$205,996
Alameda, CA 31.9%...$164,549
Contra Costa, CA 24.5%...$172,625
San Joaquin, CA 23.5%...$112,147
Napa, CA 22.7%...$146,596
Solano, CA 20.3%...$121,212 Marin, CA 19.2%...$210,618
Santa Cruz, CA 18.4%...$137,911
Sonoma, CA 16.0%...$145,597
Washington DC CSA Montgomery, MD 33.3%...$190,223
Fairfax, VA 30.9%...$195,975
Alexandria(City), VA 27.4%...$178,105
Loudoun, VA 24.0%...$181,514
Prince William, VA 23.3%...$133,783 Arlington, VA 22.1%...$201,794
Prince George's, MD 21.8%...$134,962 Howard, MD 20.0%...$179,655
Washington, DC 14.0%...$203,801
Baltimore, MD 12.5%...$145,260
Spotsylvania, VA 9.6%...$125,218
Frederick, MD 9.0%...$137,032 Ann Arundel, MD 8.2%...$154,412
Stafford, CA 8.1%...$138,247
Baltimore( City), MD 7.8%...$127,014
Fauquier, VA 7.2%...NO DATA
Frederick, VA 7.1%...$120,802
Harford, MD 5.9%...$132,340
Charles, MD 5.7%...$139,076
Washington, MD 4.6%...$112,584 Calvert, MD 4.0%...$150,748
St Mary's, MD 4.0%...$136,719
Carroll, MD 3.5%...$146,642
Franklin, PA 3.4%...$86,488
Berkeley, WV 2.8%...$98,559
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