Houston now No. 5 in population, overtakes Philadelphia

[urbanactivist]

Originally Posted by rriojas71

Houston has things going for it, but just stop. I've been there several times and it isn't even close to being as diverse as NYC and I couldn't care less about numbers. Houston doesn't pass the eye test.

LA probably, but I'm not sure.

Depends on how you want to count diversity. NYC is more segregated than Houston... you still have many people that live in ethnic enclaves, whereas Houston residents are speckled throughout the metro area. Just because people live in far apart sprawl burbs doesn't mean they're not diverse. Try working at the University of Houston, the Galleria, or in downtown. Houstonians are bombarded by diversity any time they are in public.

[Private Dick]

Houston is certainly a diverse place, but the recent study claiming that Houston is now the most diverse metro area in the nation raises eyebrows on how we now measure "diversity".

Seems the new definition of diversity simply means "non-Anglo" or "minority in the US"; and the less Anglo whites a location has, the more diverse it somehow is. And it also seems that this disturbing notion is becoming more and more accepted -- especially considering the study by Rice University.

Houston did not really become more diverse over the past 20 years, it has just become more Hispanic/Latino. Just trading out Anglos and replacing them with Hispanics. "More non-Anglo" does not (or at least should not) necessarily equate to "more diverse". Yet, that's what many of these studies now seem to be suggesting -- that if a place becomes "majority-minority", then it is somehow very diverse -- when that should not be the case.

[austlar1]

I am a big fan of Houston, but we need to keep the "facts" factual. There is no way that Houston's ethnic diversity exceeds the diversity found in NYC or LA. Those cities both have significant communities of folks from every corner of the world. NY and LA are a virtual checkerboard of ethnic communities. The diversity I am talking about is more complex than mere racial diversity. Houston is pretty cosmopolitan, but has nothing approaching the ethnic diversity found in NYC or LA or probably two or three other US metro areas.

[Double L]

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/n...thnically.html

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-te...-S-3382354.php

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...cal&id=8569966

http://brianandrews.ntn24.com/2012/0...ity-in-the-us/

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/...in-the-nation/

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by austlar1

I am a big fan of Houston, but we need to keep the "facts" factual. There is no way that Houston's ethnic diversity exceeds the diversity found in NYC or LA. Those cities both have significant communities of folks from every corner of the world. NY and LA are a virtual checkerboard of ethnic communities. The diversity I am talking about is more complex than mere racial diversity. Houston is pretty cosmopolitan, but has nothing approaching the ethnic diversity found in NYC or LA or probably two or three other US metro areas.

We should also keep in mind that relative diversity is only one factor in discussing overall diversity. Five percent of a six million person metro might be, relatively speaking, more than four percent of a twenty million person metro, but you'd have a tough time arguing that this is a meaningful distinction.

Likewise, as Private Dick said, there's not necessarily a direct relationship between diversity and the proportion of a population that is non-White. About one-third of the population of Houston proper is of Mexican heritage. It's the same thing for LA proper. To have such a large proportion of a population descend from a single nationality at some point begins to undermine diversity, even if it is non-White.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by Double L

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/n...thnically.html

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-te...-S-3382354.php

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...cal&id=8569966

http://brianandrews.ntn24.com/2012/0...ity-in-the-us/

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/...in-the-nation/

So posting various links that cite the same flawed study somehow makes things true??

According to those articles Houston has basically done nothing more over the past two decades than replace Anglos with Hispanics (mainly Mexicans and Central Americans) ----- going from 60% - 40% Anglo white and from 20% - 40% Hispanic. As I said above, that does not really make a place more diverse, it makes it more Hispanic. Replacing one broadly-classified ethnic group for another broadly-classified ethnic group does not produce diversity. Unless all diversity really means is "less Anglo".

[Double L]

Well it's better to provide sources than opinions and rants. Look at it from whatever perspective you want. Houston is the most ethnically diverse large city in America. I have a feeling that if it were Washington DC you would be on here proudly saying it was the most diverse city in America.

[BnaBreaker]

I don't understand why it's always so difficult for some people to simply be realistic. Houston is a great city with a lot going for it, and not at all a cow town filled with ignorant hicks. On the other hand, it is also not as diverse as New York City.

[Double L]

Houstonians aren't exaggerating.If the facts are out there, why not treat them as such? We didn't put it out there to exaggerate ourselves. It is the facts.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

So posting various links that cite the same flawed study somehow makes things true??

According to those articles Houston has basically done nothing more over the past two decades than replace Anglos with Hispanics (mainly Mexicans and Central Americans) ----- going from 60% - 40% Anglo white and from 20% - 40% Hispanic. As I said above, that does not really make a place more diverse, it makes it more Hispanic. Replacing one broadly-classified ethnic group for another broadly-classified ethnic group does not produce diversity. Unless all diversity really means is "less Anglo".

Fair enough. Since you seem to want to count all Hispanics as coming from the same place, we can safely assume Polish, Greek, Russian, and Italian immigrants count as white and therefore don't contribute to diversity.

Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County CA CMSA - 233,573 people
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA CMSA - 146,613
Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, TX CMSA - 63,924

http://www.vatv.org/VAP.html

We have in essence a vietnamese population the size of Dien Bien Phu living in the metro as well.

But it truly doesn't matter what the ethnic make-up of the city is. Mexico City is the largest metro in the World (and the 2nd largest Urban agglomeration behind Tokyo) and believe it or not, it's almost all latino! And does anyone remember how residents of Chicago reacted when LA surpassed them? The same thing happened. "Who wants to live in the desert?" "There isn't any real city there!" "Look at all the sprawl and traffic!" So Philadelphia's metro already includes the capital of New Jersey as a suburb, I have read posts that claim that Houston isn't a real city because it sprawls then others argue that Philadelphia should be bigger if only it sprawled to include smaller cities like Allentown as "suburbs".

It doesn't matter which city has a brighter rainbow of cultures and which county votes Democratic most often because it comes down to numbers (and practically all big cities with large amounts of poor vote Democratic anyway). Philadelphia Metro can absorb as many smaller cities as it wants but it will buy them at most 5 years or so before Houston passes them anyways.

[Urbanguy]

Here's the 40 largest ethnic, national, racial or tribal groups that we have information for so far of LA, NYC & Houston metros (2010 Census):

Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA CSA *These figures do not include the massive Armenian, Iranian, etc populations that LA has.
1 Mexican: 6,375,180
2 Black or African American alone: 1,245,186
3 Filipino alone: 505,578
4 Chinese (except Taiwanese) alone: 459,318
5 Salvadoran: 428,904
6 Hispanic or Latino (n.e.c. or generic responses) 385,243
7 Korean alone: 334,329
8 Vietnamese alone: 302,865
9 Guatemalan: 264,044
10 Asian Indian or East Indian alone: 152,595
11 Japanese alone: 148,929
12 Spaniard or Spanish: 104,091
13 Puerto Rican: 86,695
14 American Indian or Alaska Native tribes (not specified) 64,839
15 Cuban: 63,292
16 Taiwanese alone: 59,373
17 Peruvian: 53,727
18 Honduran: 53,524
19 Nicaraguan: 51,293
20 Cambodian (Khmer) alone: 44,277
21 Colombian: 42,417
22 Thai alone: 33,998
23 Argentinean: 31,524
24 Ecuadorian: 28,418
25 Mexican American Indian alone: 22,812
26 Samoan alone: 20,845
27 Pakistani alone: 19,869
28 Asian (not specified) 18,556
29 Indonesian alone: 17,703
30 American Indian tribes (n.e.c.) 15,577
31 Costa Rican: 14,976
32 Chilean: 13,152
33 Panamanian: 9,197
34 Laotian alone: 9,032
35 Native Hawaiian (Kānaka Maoli) alone: 8,804
36 Bolivian: 8,373
37 Guamanian or Chamorro (Chamoru) alone: 8,009
38 Sri Lankan alone: 7,124
39 Bangladeshi alone: 6,572
40 Cherokee (Tsalagi) alone: 6,539
Total Population: 17,877,006

New York, NY CSA *Keep in mind this does not include the massive Jamaican, Hatian, Trinidadian & other Caribbean Black populations that NY has or Guyanese, Brazilian, Nigerian, Arab, Ghanaian, etc populations as well.
1 Black or African American alone: 3,727,105
2 Puerto Rican: 1,373,911
3 Dominican (Dominican Republic): 863,400
4 Chinese (except Taiwanese) alone: 657,015
5 Mexican: 630,440
6 Asian Indian or East Indian alone: 573,329
7 Ecuadorian: 344,781
8 Hispanic or Latino (n.e.c. or generic responses) 304,976
9 Colombian: 248,588
10 Korean alone: 218,764
11 Salvadoran: 206,475
12 Filipino alone: 201,156
13 Cuban: 145,293
14 Peruvian: 145,153
15 Guatemalan: 131,244
16 Honduran: 107,241
17 Spaniard or Spanish: 87,118
18 Pakistani alone: 83,659
19 American Indian or Alaska Native tribes (not specified) 65,172
20 Bangladeshi alone: 63,069
21 Japanese alone: 48,487
22 Argentinean: 39,296
23 Vietnamese alone: 33,459
24 Costa Rican: 31,961
25 Panamanian: 31,105
26 Asian (not specified) 24,186
27 Taiwanese alone: 23,359
28 Chilean: 23,197
29 Venezuelan: 20,756
30 Nicaraguan: 19,609
31 Uruguayan: 17,536
32 Thai alone: 11,062
33 Bolivian: 10,461
34 Paraguayan: 8,001
35 South American Indian alone: 7,909
36 Nepalese alone: 7,320
37 Mexican American Indian alone: 6,999
38 Sri Lankan alone: 6,955
39 Indonesian alone: 5,955
40 Central American Indian alone: 5,091
Total Population: 22,085,649

Houston, TX CSA
1 Mexican: 1,601,318
2 Black or African American alone: 1,045,232
3 Salvadoran: 141,704
4 Hispanic or Latino (n.e.c. or generic responses) 126,309
5 Vietnamese alone: 104,106
6 Asian Indian or East Indian alone: 91,852
7 Chinese (except Taiwanese) alone: 65,857
8 Honduran: 53,721
9 Filipino alone: 39,606
10 Guatemalan: 38,215
11 Puerto Rican: 29,680
12 Pakistani alone: 29,452
13 Colombian: 28,980
14 Spaniard or Spanish: 25,592
15 American Indian or Alaska Native tribes (not specified) 22,210
16 Cuban: 19,223
17 Korean alone: 14,796
18 Venezuelan: 12,501
19 Nicaraguan: 9,518
20 Peruvian: 8,617
21 Asian (not specified) 6,577
22 Argentinean: 6,564
23 Taiwanese alone: 6,213
24 Ecuadorian: 5,036
25 Dominican (Dominican Republic): 4,987
26 Japanese alone: 4,836
27 Mexican American Indian alone: 4,691
28 Cambodian (Khmer) alone: 4,625
29 Panamanian: 3,368
30 Cherokee (Tsalagi) alone: 2,904
31 Thai alone: 2,857
32 Costa Rican: 2,731
33 Bangladeshi alone: 2,696
34 Chilean: 2,572
35 Bolivian: 2,366
36 Laotian alone: 1,989
37 Indonesian alone: 1,789
38 Burmese alone: 1,635
39 Uruguayan: 1,608
40 Choctaw alone: 1,549
Total Population: 6,051,363

....you decide

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

Fair enough. Since you seem to want to count all Hispanics as coming from the same place, we can safely assume Polish, Greek, Russian, and Italian immigrants count as white and therefore don't contribute to diversity

I don't count all hispanics as the same -- but this "diversity" study certainly does (and that goes for all anglo groups too). Or didn't you read the Rice report? It says that Houston is now the most diverse because it saw 20% increases and decreases in the hispanic and anglo white populations over the past 20 yrs, respectively. It doesn't break any groups out of those broad classifications. That's really not increasing diversity, especially since the city and region will become even more hispanic and less anglo white. Majority minority does not automatically mean "divers", even though a "study" like this and others would have us believe so.

I have nothing at all against Houston; I took issue with how these studies are now seeming to define diversity. Or did I not make that clear enough in my two previous posts where I said the exact same thing. I couldn't give a crap what city is actually the most diverse, but I will offer my 2 cents when a supposed academic study plays fast and loose with definitions for the sake of a feel good article.

Originally Posted by Double L

Well it's better to provide sources than opinions and rants. Look at it from whatever perspective you want. Houston is the most ethnically diverse large city in America. I have a feeling that if it were Washington DC you would be on here proudly saying it was the most diverse city in America.

Posting 5 different links to the same goofy article does not make it true. If you want to believe it, knock yourself out.

[Double L]

Well I think Urbanguys post helps prove my point as well.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Double L

Well I think Urbanguys post helps prove my point as well.

How?

All I got out of that post is that Houston's CSA of 6.1 million is 26% Mexican, 17% black, 2% Salvadorian, and a bunch of other less than 2% minorities. That seems to back Private Dick's point: more Mexican doesn't mean more diverse.

[pm91]

Sweet Jesus. Never in my life would I have thought the term "Diverse" would be a debate. The way our country has always recorded "diversity" (yes it's in quotes now for it seems it's more like an UrbanDictionary term now rather than a legitimate term) has been based on race, which is a social construct. It used to be just White and Black with complete disregard to any other minority. Now, it's based on ethnicity which, in most cases, means Nationality. Houston may not be the destination of choice for most in this country, but it definitely is among immigrants. Hispanic is not just Mexican obviously, but Salvadorian, Honduran, etc. The Asian population is booming especially in the Inner Loop and Western suburbs (Katy, Cypress, Cinco Ranch). No, numerically Houston may not have the biggest amount, but when it comes down to percentages, yes, Houston is extremely diverse. I feel the use of "Diversity" in this study is essentially the decline of the historically majority Anglo with a rise in overall Minorities; demonstrating a closing gap between majority and minority making the city the "Most Diverse in the Country" given that it is happening at a rapid pace. Even though Harris County has been a Minority-Majority county for quite some time now the city has not. I'll throw this in just to piss people off too: Houston also has the most foreign Consulates after NYC. There.

[JoninATX]

Houston has a good amount of diversity but I would not go as far as saying it has more than NYC or LA. Now I can see Houston diversity passing up Chicago, Philadelphia, or Washington D.C.

[Urbanguy]

^I'm not sure about D.C.'s metro area but perhaps as equally diverse.

Washington DC-Baltimore, MD CSA
1 Black or African American alone: 2,245,992
2 Salvadoran: 248,481
3 Asian Indian or East Indian alone: 161,059
4 Mexican: 155,377
5 Chinese (except Taiwanese) alone: 106,316
6 Korean alone: 105,839
7 Hispanic or Latino (n.e.c. or generic responses) 85,584
8 Filipino alone: 76,750
9 Puerto Rican: 70,482
10 Vietnamese alone: 65,711
11 Guatemalan: 59,661
12 Peruvian: 45,660
13 Honduran: 44,635
14 Bolivian: 38,470
15 Pakistani alone: 35,522
16 Spaniard or Spanish: 26,602
17 Colombian: 25,310
18 Dominican (Dominican Republic): 21,573
19 Cuban: 18,732
20 American Indian or Alaska Native tribes (not specified) 16,634
21 Nicaraguan: 15,178
22 Japanese alone: 13,560
23 Ecuadorian: 12,487
24 Asian (not specified) 11,438
25 Argentinean: 11,132
26 Thai alone: 9,377
27 Panamanian: 9,307
28 Bangladeshi alone: 8,361
29 Chilean: 8,011
30 Taiwanese alone: 7,339
31 Venezuelan: 7,006
32 Nepalese alone: 6,938
33 Cambodian (Khmer) alone: 6,181
34 Burmese alone: 4,093
35 Costa Rican: 3,930
36 Laotian alone: 3,707
37 Sri Lankan alone: 3,597
38 Indonesian alone: 3,502
39 Cherokee (Tsalagi) alone: 3,055
40 American Indian tribes (n.e.c.) 2,573
Total Population: 8,572,971

and let us not forget the Bay Area...

San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA CSA
1 Mexican: 1,336,383
2 Chinese (except Taiwanese) alone: 560,896
3 Black or African American alone: 484,610
4 Filipino alone: 382,950
5 Asian Indian or East Indian alone: 245,685
6 Vietnamese alone: 186,225
7 Salvadoran: 98,979
8 Hispanic or Latino (n.e.c. or generic responses) 82,135
9 Korean alone: 73,588
10 Japanese alone: 70,151
11 Spaniard or Spanish: 59,552
12 Guatemalan: 45,773
13 Puerto Rican: 43,164
14 Nicaraguan: 38,366
15 Taiwanese alone: 29,741
16 Peruvian: 25,982
17 American Indian or Alaska Native tribes (not specified) 21,336
18 Pakistani alone: 13,530
19 Cambodian (Khmer) alone: 13,175
20 Laotian alone: 12,115
21 Cuban: 11,742
22 Colombian: 11,112
23 Honduran: 10,789
24 Asian (not specified) 10,145
25 Tongan alone: 10,130
26 Samoan alone: 10,029
27 Thai alone: 9,142
28 Fijian (Itaukei) alone: 8,216
29 Burmese alone: 7,478
30 Mexican American Indian alone: 7,188
31 Argentinean: 7,021
32 American Indian tribes (n.e.c.) 6,525
33 Chilean: 6,029
34 Guamanian or Chamorro (Chamoru) alone: 5,887
35 Indonesian alone: 5,092
36 Native Hawaiian (Kānaka Maoli) alone: 5,064
37 Ecuadorian: 3,647
38 Panamanian: 3,588
39 Costa Rican: 3,367
40 Pacific Islander (not specified) 3,349
Total Population: 7,468,390

[vertex]

Best. Bumfight. Ever.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Shawn

How?

All I got out of that post is that Houston's CSA of 6.1 million is 26% Mexican, 17% black, 2% Salvadorian, and a bunch of other less than 2% minorities. That seems to back Private Dick's point: more Mexican doesn't mean more diverse.

That also means a good burrito is never too far out of reach.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

I don't count all hispanics as the same -- but this "diversity" study certainly does (and that goes for all anglo groups too). Or didn't you read the Rice report? It says that Houston is now the most diverse because it saw 20% increases and decreases in the hispanic and anglo white populations over the past 20 yrs, respectively. It doesn't break any groups out of those broad classifications. That's really not increasing diversity, especially since the city and region will become even more hispanic and less anglo white. Majority minority does not automatically mean "divers", even though a "study" like this and others would have us believe so.

I agree with you. I don't get that either and I think it's kind of a cheap way of measuring diversity.