Which city is more diverse: Seattle or Philadelphia?

[SirGreenDown]

Originally Posted by cali3448893

All Seattle is really known for is their asians while Philly is known for their blacks, Dominicans, Asians and puerto ricans but then again this is my opinion.

Its more Italian if anything, but I agree for the most part.

[Deezus]

Overall, Philadelphia comes off as more diverse--also more diverse historically with a typical Northeast urban mix of Italians, Irish, Jews, and other Southern and European groups while Seattle was more settled by Norwegians and other Scandanavians along with Northern European groups. The scale of black culture in Philadelphia dwarfs the formerlly vibrant though much smaller community in central Seattle(which did have a good music scene at one point and helped provide a launching pad for Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Jimi Hendrix). Philadelphia has more Hispanic immigrants--most of Latino immigrants to the Seattle area are ending up in other parts of the metro. Seattle has fairly large and longstanding Fillipino, Chinese, and Japanese communities--and increasingly more Vietnamese and SE Asians lately(as does Philadelphia from what I've heard).

It's just that since American cities have become increasingly diverese since immigration laws were reformed in the 1960s, American cities have a very high level of ethnic diversity. Seattle gets stereotyped as a overwhelmingly white city, but it's really only in comparison to certain cities. I was just in Seattle yesterday, and travelling around the city or suburbs I saw plenty of diversity--it's just smaller in total than some other cities--and much of the recent immigration has targeted the suburbs as well.

But honestly, if Seattle was located in much of the world--it'd be the most diverse city in a lot of first or second world countries. Just for it's sizable and diverse Asian population alone. Maybe not in comparison with Toronto or London or Paris, but I've travelled around much of Europe--and the diversity there is often overstated to just mean segregated ethnic ghetto suburbs. Berlin is cited as a diverse city, but about 70 percent of the population is made up of native Germans. Rome is practically all Italians, Amsterdam has the same percentage of whites as Seattle. And certainly more diverse than practically every city in Asia. It's just a different standard of comparison in the US where you have places like New York and Los Angeles and so on.

[UDResident]

Philadelphia, and it's really not even close. It's more diverse in every sense of the word.

[Toure]

Originally Posted by UDResident

Philadelphia, and it's really not even close. It's more diverse in every sense of the word.

I agree...