Demographic Question about Boston (Worcester, Lowell: 2010, apartments, living in)

[mudball25]

I am a Pakistani American in my 20s currently living in Baltimore and am looking to move to a place with a little more cultural diversity. Boston is on my list of possible cities to move to (I am also considering DC and Philly). I would like to move to a place with a decent number of Pakistani-Americans, but also with people from a wide variety of cultures. Can someone please tell me about about the demographics in the Boston area? Much appreciated!

[jake786]

In my experience, DC and Philly are more diverse than Boston. As of the 2000 Census, Boston was roughly 55% caucasian, 25% african american, and 7% asian.

At the same time, I wouldn't let the numbers scare you, depending on what part of Boston you would like to live in. I know there are significant numbers of Pakistani Americans in both Cambridge and Brighton/Allston. Boston sometimes gets a bad rep for being intolerant, but for the most part, that is an unfortunate generalization. Good luck!

[mudball25]

Thanks jake786! I will research Cambridge

[smarty]

In 2000, MA has ~3.8% Asian. Boston has ~7.5% and Cambridge 11.9%. The current estimate for MA is about 6-7% for 2010 census.

Since Pakistani population is relatively small, I cannot find a break down of them by town.

If you accept Asian Indian as substitute... then these high Asian towns...
Location-- Population-- Asian*-- Indian-- Percent
Massachusetts-- 6,203,092-- 238,124-- 43,801-- 0.7%
Boston city 589,141 44,284 4,442 0.8%
Cambridge city 101,355 12,036 2,720 2.7%
Lowell city 105,167 17,371 2,424 2.3%
Somerville city 77,478 4,990 1,363 1.8%
Quincy city 88,025 13,546 1,127 1.3%
Worcester city 172,648 8,402 1,021 0.6%
Malden city 56,340 7,882 962 1.7%
Brookline town 57,107 7,325 932 1.6%
Newton city 83,829 6,434 769 0.9%
Lynn city 89,050 5,730 353 0.4%





2000 U.S. Census
Asian Population in Massachusetts by Ethnicity
Chinese, except Taiwanese 82,028
Asian Indian 43,801
Vietnamese 33,962
Cambodian 19,696
Korean 17,369
Japanese 10,539
Filipino 8,273
Other Asian, not specified 4,019
Laotian 3,797
Taiwanese 2,364
Pakistani 2,145
Thai 2,141
Hmong 1,127
Indonesian 730
Sri Lankan 651
Other Asian 614
Bangladeshi 573
Malaysian 218
TOTAL ASIAN (one ethnicity)* 234,047
TOTAL ASIAN in MA** 238,124

*This total reflects those Asians who identified themselves as Asian only and one Asian ethnicity only.

**This total reflects those Asians who identified themselves as Asian only, but possibly more than one Asian ethnicity.

[mudball25]

Hi Smarty. Thanks for taking the time to do all that research - it is much appreciated! And here I thought Bostonians were unhelpful

Jake mentioned Cambridge, which might be more of what I'm looking for. Has anyone been there? If so, how does Cambridge compare to Boston?

[molbio]

Given your age, you'd probably enjoy Cambridge. Cambridge is right next to Boston so they're not mutually exclusive. People walk across the Charles River on a popular bridge (MIT on 1 side, Copley/Fenway on the other) between the 2 cities all the time, there are parks/walkways flanking the river with plenty of joggers etc.

Cambridge is certainly smaller than Boston. It has a lot of apartments. Depending on your budget, you might also want to consider Arlington, Somerville which are to the immediate west of Cambridge.

[haberstroh]

Cambridge has a nice mix and seems very tolerant. But it is expensive...our 2 BDR Apartment (near Harvard) cost $2000 a month (and that was in 2003). Try neighboring towns if money is a concern.