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I'm just speaking in terms of race/ethnicity. If we throw in socioeconomic background, Philadelphia proper probably gets the edge, with the metro area being a wash.
I know. But do you measure percentage of Asians, black people, Hispanics, or do you need to break it down on an ethnic level? Do you weigh it? If you break it down on an ethnic level, do you break down white people? Does this only count white people who keep a strong affinity to Europe?
I'm not trying to come across as racist, I'm just trying to point out some absurdities in using quantitative measures to judge a qualitative thing.
I know. But do you measure percentage of Asians, black people, Hispanics, or do you need to break it down on an ethnic level? Do you weigh it? If you break it down on an ethnic level, do you break down white people? Does this only count white people who keep a strong affinity to Europe?
I'm not trying to come across as racist, I'm just trying to point out some absurdities in using quantitative measures to judge a qualitative thing.
If I were writing a doctoral thesis, I'd probably take all this into account, and then some.
But given that this is a City-Data post, as far as I'm concerned, posting the 2010 Census data along with a cursory analysis more than suffices. But if you have all that extra time on your hands, feel free to re-stratify the numbers and report accordingly.
More often I like to look at ethnic diversity that's what's important but racial diversity gives you the idea of size and scope, it's not the end all be all though IMO.
Greater Boston, MA-NH-RI
White 6,373,965 (83.9%)
Black 572,442 (7.5%)
Asian 451,339 (6%)
Hispanic 699,068 (9.2%)
Other 348,732 (4.6%)
Greater Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD
White 4,684,541 (71.4%)
Black 1,369,770 (20.9%)
Asian 349,377 (5.3%)
Hispanic 598,043 (9%)
Other 268,394 (4.1%)
Obviously Boston dominates in both numbers and percentages white, Asian, Hispanic, and other. Philly dominates in both numbers and percentages of black population. This is just racial diversity though, so bear that in mind.
More often I like to look at ethnic diversity that's what's important but racial diversity gives you the idea of size and scope, it's not the end all be all though IMO.
Greater Boston, MA-NH-RI
White 6,373,965 (83.9%)
Black 572,442 (7.5%)
Asian 451,339 (6%)
Hispanic 699,068 (9.2%)
Other 348,732 (4.6%)
Greater Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD
White 4,684,541 (71.4%)
Black 1,369,770 (20.9%)
Asian 349,377 (5.3%)
Hispanic 598,043 (9%)
Other 268,394 (4.1%)
Obviously Boston dominates in both numbers and percentages white, Asian, Hispanic, and other. Philly dominates in both numbers and percentages of black population. This is just racial diversity though, so bear that in mind.
Dominates? Greater Boston's proportion of Asians, Others, and especially Hispanics, is marginally higher than Greater Philadelphia's. The numbers are greater because the Boston CSA is so much bigger than the Philadelphia CSA. The metro area numbers better make your case, although even there the difference is far from night and day.
More often I like to look at ethnic diversity that's what's important but racial diversity gives you the idea of size and scope, it's not the end all be all though IMO.
Greater Boston, MA-NH-RI
White 6,373,965 (83.9%)
Black 572,442 (7.5%)
Asian 451,339 (6%)
Hispanic 699,068 (9.2%)
Other 348,732 (4.6%)
Greater Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD
White 4,684,541 (71.4%)
Black 1,369,770 (20.9%)
Asian 349,377 (5.3%)
Hispanic 598,043 (9%)
Other 268,394 (4.1%)
Obviously Boston dominates in both numbers and percentages white, Asian, Hispanic, and other. Philly dominates in both numbers and percentages of black population. This is just racial diversity though, so bear that in mind.
The biggest difference I see is that proportionally Boston is more white and Philly is more black - the other aspects are all less than 1% different
I do agree that ethnic diversity is also important as factors. Both have signifiant european lineage and some subtleties among others. I know Boston has a significant Brasilian population and think (not totally sure) that Philly has a larger Jaimaican and PR population etc.
Based on my experience with both places not sure I would frankly call one any more significantly diverse. They seem really similar to me
Yeah dominates when we're talking about the white population, double digit percentages and 1.7M lead in numbers. Marginally for the Hispanic population percentage, 100K for actual numbers. Decent margin both percentages and numbers for Asian and others. Boston loses the black population badly.
This is just race though, not very telling IMO.
Other than black and white, the percentage differences are fairly small. Few people would say 6.0% dominates 5.3%, or especially that 4.5% dominates 4.1%, but in any event, that's semantics.
Moving onto ethnicity, looking at the most recent American Community Survey estimates, there are some notable differences in ancestry between the two CSAs. I won't copy the whole table (which is incredibly long), but here are the largest gaps (200% or greater, so as to create a large enough buffer accounting for the difference in CSA population) among people reporting one or more ancestries (note that specific Asian origins are not listed here, as they are tabulated directly from the Census):
Alsatians
271 Boston v. 854 Philadelphia
Arabs 88,827 Boston v. 29,423 Philadelphia (Boston has significantly more Iraqis, Jordanians, Lebanese, Moroccans, and Syrians)
Armenians 42,607 Boston v. 7,354 Philadelphia
Australians 3,236 Boston v. 1,397 Philadelphia
Brazilians 73,039 Boston v. 7,892 Philadelphia
Canadians 65,334 Boston v. 7,609 Philadelphia
Finnish 27,030 Boston v. 5,737 Philadelphia
French 665,168 Boston v. 103,189 Philadelphia
French Canadians 322,764 Boston v. 17,146 Philadelphia
Germans
482,798 Boston v. 1,178,286 Philadelphia
German Russians
60 Boston v. 856 Philadelphia
Greeks 93,756 Boston v. 32,612 Philadelphia
Guyanese
988 Boston v. 2,748 Philadelphia
Hungarians
20,522 Boston v. 45,543 Philadelphia
New Zealanders 377 Boston v. 144 Philadelphia
Northern Europeans 8,833 Boston v. 3,946 Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Germans
1,020 Boston v. 47,085 Philadelphia
Portuguese 392,641 Boston v. 15,042 Philadelphia
Scottish 197,874 Boston v. 90,341 Philadelphia
Serbians 2,776 Boston v. 1,711 Philadelphia
Slavs
915 Boston v. 4,850 Philadelphia
Slovaks
5,339 Boston v. 26,119 Philadelphia
Subsaharan Africans 151,470 Boston v. 67,023 Philadelphia (Boston has significantly more Cape Verdeans, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Senegalese, Somalians, South Africans, and Ugandans; while Philadelphia has significantly more Sierra Leoneans and Sudanese)
Swedes 129,567 Boston v. 41,412 Philadelphia
Ukrainians
24,311 Boston v. 60,410 Philadelphia
Welsh
27,277 Boston v. 55,216 Philadelphia
Haitians 78,156 Boston v. 17,806 Philadelphia
U.S. Virgin Islanders 788 Boston v. 272 Philadelphia
Some of these differences, such as the French and Scottish in Boston and the Germans and Welsh in Pennsylvania, date back to colonial times. Others, like Boston's Greeks and Portuguese and Philadelphia's Hungarians and Ukrainians stem from the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Italians and Irish are roughly evenly matched, as are Poles and Russians. Other groups, like Boston's Brazilians and Haitians, and Philadelphia's Guyanese and Sudanese, are the products of relatively recent arrivals. Boston has obviously taken in far more post-WWII immigrants, both in number and variety. While Philadelphia is starting to catch up, it clearly has a long way to go before it can compete with Boston's overall diversity.
I expected Boston to win out, but not by this much. Hope this data proves enlightening to others!
Wasn't the whole diversity thing already discussed at great length in another thread? In the end, both cities have nice diversity and Boston holds an edge, but not a large one.
Wasn't the whole diversity thing already discussed at great length in another thread? In the end, both cities have nice diversity and Boston holds an edge, but not a large one.
Agree they are not different but not sure the region with more than 8 in 10 of one race would be the more diverse one.
That said based on my experiences I find no notable difference in overall diversity
Last edited by kidphilly; 11-07-2012 at 03:31 PM..
Agree they are not different but not sure the region with more than 1 in 10 of one race would be the more diverse one.
That said based on my experiences I find no notable difference in overall diversity
Philadelphia probably doesn't feel appreciably less diverse, because on a day-to-day basis, clusters of ethnicities with different cultures (but similar phenotypes) will seem like one homogenous group.
I expected Boston to win out, but not by this much. Hope this data proves enlightening to others!
Yeah, interesting.
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