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I used to travel all over the country and have been in most of these cities (or did so for leisure) and from from a purely colloquial view this list is on point. A few of them I would shuffle around, but the thing to really pay attention to is the steep drop off the cliff you go after the top 20.
As someone that grew up in two of the cities on the list in the Top 10, it's never not jarring to experience.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by As Above So Below...
And I think that is the point Im trying to drive home. When we look at the top 20:
New York City: 149.8
Washington DC: 113.8
Houston: 97.7
Los Angeles: 97.6
San Francisco: 90.2
Dallas/Fort Worth: 83.0
Sacramento: 82.1
Atlanta: 80.9
Chicago: 80.6
Boston: 80.1
Miami/Fort Lauderdale: 80.0
Seattle/Tacoma: 79.5
San Jose: 76.4
San Diego: 73.1
Orlando: 72.3
Las Vegas: 72.0
Philadelphia: 64.3
Riverside/San Bernardino: 63.9
Baltimore: 60.6
Charlotte: 60.2
NYC is your firm number one on its own and DC is a firm number two on its own.
Then I would say Houston, LA, and SF have similar (very high) levels of diversity.
I would say DFW, Sacramento, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Miami, and Seattle, also have similar levels of diversity (also high).
Then I would do the same for San Jose, San Diego, Orlando, and Vegas.
The thing to focus on is not so much the exact order but which urban areas are in clumps with one another.
I also think (and there is no real way to measure this) that it is worth considering a particular city's location as well when thinking about this topic. For example, while it varies you see a similar theme of diversity among cities on this list that make up mega regions like BosWash, the Texas Triangle, or the big cities in California.
What's interesting to me is that there are few cities that stand out significantly from their surrounding cities like Atlanta, Chicago, or Miami (although Orlando has been on the come up). It's at least some of the reason for how those cities are seen in their respective regions both as bastions of inclusiveness for people from smaller towns in close proximity...as well as Satan incarnate to those that find living in such a place abhorrent.
I applaud the OP for putting in the effort to compile this data. One little quibble that I have is that I wish East Asians and South Asians would be broken out into separate categories. (What about Southeast Asians? Either a third category or combine with East Asians.) East Asians and South Asians are really quite different from each other, not only in appearance but in culture, native languages, etc. Anecdotally, they seem different in settlement patterns as well, but I don't have anything official to support that.
Yes, I do understand that the Census lumps them all together, and I don't expect the OP to take the further trouble of breaking them apart. My comment isn't really directed at the OP at all, but rather at the Census Bureau.
True, but each of the major ethnic categories includes a ton of diversity.
That is why I broke down by individual country. There no real way to break that down in the racial diversity category, but it is addressed in the immigrant/nationality diversity category.
It could be argued that the Asian category is the most culturally diverse as even excluding the Arab world a majority of the world’s population is categorized as Asian in the U.S census but if you were to break the Asian category up. It could then be argued that an East Asian category or a South Asian category especially in the American context id less diverse than Hispanic Americans in America or White or Black Americans. So I don’t think there’s a point to splitting it.
Especially if it’s South, East and SE Asia. South is dominated by Indian Americans who are wealthy with Pakistani, Nepali, Sri Lankan and Bengali Americans in most areas being the minority. East is dominated by Chinese Americans who are also well off and the culturally relevant Korean Americans as well as multigenerational Japanese Americans a distant third. SE Asian and Central Asians are diverse but the latter group is pretty small in America and the former group is still smaller than the East and South Asian groups.
It could be argued that the Asian category is the most culturally diverse as even excluding the Arab world a majority of the world’s population is categorized as Asian in the U.S census but if you were to break the Asian category up. It could then be argued that an East Asian category or a South Asian category especially in the American context id less diverse than Hispanic Americans in America or White or Black Americans. So I don’t think there’s a point to splitting it.
Arabs are actually categorized as white (grrrrrrrrrr). That is a big reason why Detroit's racial breakdown is so white.
I used Simpson's Diversity Index to determine points given for this category. I gave bonus points for the concentration of the smallest represented group.
Simpson's Diversity Index is for San Jose is 3.04 which is very high. This is multiplied by 10 to determine the number of points. That means I awarded San Jose 30.4 points for its racial diversity
San Jose's smallest represented group are Black residents. I awarded 2.3 points for that. Its very low relative to other urban areas smallest groups.
The next category to consider was immigrant/ethnic diversity. Both total number of immigrants as well as per capita number of immigrants were considered. For each nationality with 25,000 immigrants in the urban area, a point was awarded. San Jose has five:
But San Jose is a relatively small urban area compared to others on this list so per capita is important to consider too. For every nationality that contributes at least 0.5% to the total population, a point was given. San Jose has 9:
So that means, in total, San Jose was given 14 points for immigrant/nationality diversity.
Next was Linguistic Diversity. The method is the exact same as immigrant/nationality diversity. One point for each language spoken by at least 25,000 people and one point for each language where at least 0.5% of the total population speaks that language. In the total group, San Jose only had 5:
Spanish: 269,472
Chinese (all dialects): 176,739
Indian Languages: 139,302
Vietnamese: 108,091
Tagalog: 46,181
The last thing considered was integration. The was measured by six data points: White-Black dissimilarity, White-Hispanic dissimilarity, White-Asian dissimilarity, Black-Asian dissimilarity, Black-Hispanic dissimilarity, and Hispanic-Asian dissimilarity. The combination of all of those values were used. In San Jose's case, the combo of all six points was 231.9 which is low.
As Im sure you have all noticed, this is a positive ranking system but the lower the number for dissimilarity, the more diverse. So what I did was flip them. I took 600 (100 for each metric) and subtracted the value. This would put San Jose at 368.1. But a number that high would not combine was the points of the other metrics so I divided by 25. That means San Jose got 14.7 points for integration.
These values are then all added together to determine the total score. For San Jose, it was 76.4.
Then I did that for all the other ones in the exact same way.
Given this analysis, SJ should be higher on the list. Your point totals are somewhat arbitrary. No way SJ should be behind Atlanta for example. I'd argue that, rather than assigning additional points according to how well-represented a given area's least common race is, you could've simply awarded points for how 'non-white' a given area is. Here, SJ is being punished relative to other cities for its black population being only 2.3%, but the fact that its white population is below 30% should elevate it over the Atlantas and Bostons of the world. Some (purely hypothetical) place that's 50% white, 17% black, 17% Asian, 17% Latino doesn't deserve 15ish bonus points on that criterion over SJ, sorry. The Simpson Diversity Index scores would presumably be a more accurate reflection had those scores simply remained untouched
Not to be too critical, but my initial reaction to reading this was definitely 'wtf'. Appreciate the effort however
Last edited by Matt Marcinkiewicz; 02-02-2024 at 10:27 AM..
I'd argue that, rather than assigning additional points according to how well-represented a given area's least common race is, you could've simply awarded points for how 'non-white' a given area is.
Im sorry, but I cant get on board with that. That isn't how diversity works. Its not a measure of how few white people exist in a place. Don't forget Arabs, Brazilians, Iranians, etc. are all considered "white".
By your argument San Antonio would shoot up the list of "diversity" when its not diverse at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz
Some (purely hypothetical) place that's 50% white, 17% black, 17% Asian, 17% Latino doesn't deserve 15ish bonus points on that criterion over SJ, sorry. The Simpson Diversity Index scores would presumably be a more accurate reflection had those scores simply remained untouched
By race alone with Simpson's Diversity Index, San Jose was 8th behind DC, San Francisco, Houston, NYC, DFW, Vegas, and Atlanta.
San Jose is also a small urban area. Diversity on scale has to be factored in addition to per capita. I did both.
As for the points scale, sure its arbitrary, but can you name a study that isn't? I tried to factor in what has solid data and what constitutes diversity. I could have awarded more points for integration, but then youd have places like Portland and Salt Lake City shoot up the list artificially because they aren't diverse so the dissimilarity index is low. I would have lessoned the amount race counts, but that is the primary thing people first see in another human being and it has the harshest history in our nation. I am happy with the point scale I came up with.
San Jose has a tiny black population and it is small relative to many other on this list. That is not a "Punishment" because data does not punish, it is what it is. But to say those things should somehow be ignored I will never be on board with.
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