Sharpness in ethnic diversity "drop" between big urban centers & their hinterlands?
 

Around big diverse cities like NYC, LA or others on the coasts, Chicago, Toronto etc., how far away does the "diverse mix" feeling last as you leave the city, through their suburbs, to their exurban areas and then rural areas (assuming the city doesn't merge into another, equally diverse city)?

In some cases, the diverse mix of the city drops off into suburban areas, exurban or rural areas that are more small town "white American" or "white Canadian" but not always. For example, a diverse city can go from a mix of races/ethnicities to less densely populated areas that are non-white but still less diverse because it is one non-white race or ethnocultural group (eg. an "ethnoburb" type of suburb that is mostly middle class African American, such as in say Chicagoland, or one that is Asian American like the ones around Los Angeles). Or it could become less diverse because the big cities have more immigrants who carry the old country's cultures, and their ethnic stores/amenities while the smaller towns have more "assimilated" people.

This was partly inspired by discussion about how Toronto, in Canada may be really ethnically diverse, but the diversity drops off only an hour or so away, and how the big Canadian cities with lots of visible minorities drop off into majority white areas much quicker with distance than American cities.

For example.


Also, I wrote in a Canadian forum thread.

Hm. For DC, with the Bos-was-ny megalopolis heading north, the Virginia urban crescent heading south, and rural south/east Maryland having big black minorities, you pretty much have to head into Appalachia before it gets stark white. But in that direction it isn't alllll that far. Call I-81 a convenient marker.

Boston would be an obvious example. The core is quite diverse, while the suburbs, at least racially, aren't (though there's some ethnic diversity). Very few blacks and Hispanics in Boston sprawl.

Not sure I agree re. Toronto. The sprawl, if anything, is more diverse than the core. The rural fringe isn't diverse, but that's the case almost everywhere.

When you’re 40 or 50 miles out via the MetraRail commuter rail it’s not totally white but let’s just say it’s not as diverse as it would be toward the center.

I would expect that pretty much similar to any other midwestern or eastern coast major city


If there are other reagions in the country that don’t follow that layout then I’d like to hear about it

Yeah, Boston is a good example of a quick dropoff. The urban core is very diverse but it quickly gives way to the lilywhite New England town.

Montreal is another example. Montreal Island and Laval are diverse, but then it quickly drops off in the off-island suburbs.

CLICK: Map of US counties with a population more than 90% non-Hispanic white.

^ Yeah, the map tells the story pretty well. I always think of the upper midwest when I think of diversity dropping off quickly, but Boston is also a good example.

The opposite would be Albuquerque, NM - very little difference in the racial breakdown between city, suburbs, and surrounding rural areas, short of a small black population that is present in ABQ.

Seems like the places that have a really big drop off leaving the cities, towards the surrounding areas are places where an influx of a lot of ethnic/racial minorities arrived for economic opportunity during a short span of time at some point, as the city boomed.

For example, the upper midwest with the Great Migration (of black Americans) in the 20th century, or Canadian cities like Toronto or Montreal with overseas immigration in the 20th century and today.

Places where ethnic or racial minorities either gradually arrived over multiple waves of time periods or were already living in an area for a long time before the cities became booming (eg. Black Americans in the South, and to some extent the East coast, Hispanics in California, Texas, New Mexico and the Southwest more broadly, an example for Asian Americans might be Hawaii), the ethnic/racial group is not concentrated in cities but spread around the local/regional area more widely.

Milwaukee is the first city that comes to mind for me. I love that city; but, it is incredibly segregated outside the urban core. It has gotten a little better over the past 10 years or so. But, the numbers are pretty shocking. I'm not sure why Waukesha County, WI (Milwaukee's largest suburban county) is not shown on the map there as being over 90% white; but, as of the 2010 Census, it was 93% white. Perhaps it's just below the 90% threshold now; but, it is still highly segregated and they've got the attitudes toward minorities to explain why, too.

pittsburgh looks like another one where things get immediately white once you leave the core county.



i'm actually kinda surprised by how far you have to go from chicago to find a 90+% white county.

living here my whole life, i had always just assumed that as soon as you're in the cornfields, everyone is white, but that apparently isn't the case in chicago's hinterland.

The suburbs are actually as diverse or more so than the city.

i wasn't talking about the burbs.

i know that chicagoloand burbs are fairly diverse.

i was talking about the corn country beyond the burbs.

places like lasalle, or lee, or boone counties. i would have guessed that those places are easily 90+% white.

but apparently they are not.

Milwaukee's very white suburbs (the "WOW" counties) are also super-Republican, and haven't really see the massive trend away from the GOP found in suburban Chicago, Detroit etc. over the past two decades. I think they're even more politically conservative than rural Wisconsin.

this is true.

my in-laws live in waukesha county.

it's like a terrifying fox-news alternate reality kind of conservatism.

the pervasiveness of trump signs in their neighborhood 2 years ago was astonishing (coming from my fantastic chicago bubble).

I concur...my dad and most of my dad's family live in Waukesha County. I've had a few arguments and a few falling outs with them over racial comments and attitudes in the past. I think it's pretty common to hear stories from my dad and grandparents generations about the family moving from 10th and XX St to 37th and XX St to 89th and XX St and finally out to the lily white suburbs as the "inner core" became blacker and "rougher".

The attitudes toward the gay community (my own), were not as accepting even 12 years ago (when I first moved to Milwaukee) as they are now. Coming from California, that was a lot to swallow.

...and, as with you, I type this from my fantastic, albeit smaller, Twin Cities bubble.

Politically, Milwaukee reminds me of Metro Detroit in the 80s and 90s.

Really? What kinds of ethnicities are you seeing out there? Hispanics, I'm guessing?

i'm not "seeing" anything out there, i was just going off of the map link that was posted earlier in the thread.

this one: Map of US counties with a population more than 90% non-Hispanic white.

deep into northern illinois corn country and even across NW indiana and into southwest michigan, counties far from chicagoland's well known diversity still fall below the 90% threshold according to that map, which was surprising to me.

in fact, milwaukee's extremely conservative suburban "WOW" counties are some of the closest 90% white counties to chicago.

There is a Hispanic population that has grown in recent years in the city of Waukesha (the biggest city in Waukesha County). Also, just anecdotally, more of my black friends are moving out to the suburbs (not necessarily the WOW counties) than I've seen in the past as job centers in the Milwaukee Metro become less centralized and there is more upward mobility in the black community than in decades past.

Toronto's suburbs are a "fruit salad" For example, Vaughan east of the 400 is quite a diverse mix of new immigrants from the west indies, sri lanka, europe, russia, africa, pakistan. but go just 2 km west of the 400 and it's heavily Italian/Portuguese/anglo.

Another example is north and south of Kingston road in Scaborough. Malvern might be one of the most diverse urban parts of north america whereas Scarborough Village might be one of the least.