Diversity

If you had to guess which city in America was the most diverse, you’d probably pick one of the cities in a liberal state, like New York and California.

Surprisingly, you would be wrong.

The most diverse city, per square mile, in the entire country is in Georgia, which would be considered a “red” state, with a Cook partisan voting index of R+5.

The most diverse city in America is a town called Clarkston, and it is located a little north and west of Atlanta. It’s not very big, with only 7554 residents, but the local high school has students from 50 countries, a local mosque has 800 worshippers, and half the population is from outside the United States. The city is noted for its ethnic diversity, and is often referred to as "the most diverse square mile in America" and "the Ellis Island of the South."  In the 1990s, refugee resettlement programs identified Clarkston as a good fit for displaced persons of many backgrounds.

Clarkston is located in Georgia’s 4^th political district, which is a strong Democratic district (Cook partisan voting index of D+24).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarkston,_Georgiae

So, the question is, why is diversity so important?

People who live in a diverse community tend be “open minded” about a variety of topics. The folks that live in towns that aren’t are far less likely to accepting of other points of view. Mesa, Arizona, for example, is the largest suburban city by population (508.958 people) in the United States. Due to the fact that the population is 83.8% white, it has been rated as THE most conservative large town in America.

Clarkson, of course, has a fair number of refugees, which makes it a more attractive place to live. Since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the U.S. than any other nation, and more than two million refugees have arrived in the U.S. since 1980. From 2005 to 2007, approximately 40,000 refugee seekers per year were accepted into the U.S., compared to about 30,000 per year in the UK and 25,000 per year in Canada. The U.S. accounted for about 10% of all refugee-seeker acceptances in the OECD countries in 1998-2007. The United States is by far the most populous OECD country and receives fewer than the average number of refugees per capita: In 2010-14 (before the massive migrant surge in Europe in 2015) it ranked 28 of 43 industrialized countries reviewed by UNHCR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_the_United_States

For most of our history, immigrants from other countries have been a source of conflict, which led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the Immigration Act of 1924.

More recently, it resulted in the Muslim ban of 2017.

The 2^nd most valuable company in the entire world, by market capitalization, is Apple, Inc. One of its founders was Steve Jobs, whose biological father was  Abdulfattah "John" (al-)Jandali, who was a Muslim born in Syria.

The 4^th most valuable company in the world is Alphabet, Inc., which is the parent company of Google. One of the founders of Google, Sergey Brin, immigrated from the Soviet Union when he was 6 years old.

America has long been known as a “melting pot”, and no city exemplifies that better than Los Angeles. Los Angeles is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the United States, and with a population of over 3 million residents, it is obvious that there are a lot of languages being spoken. English is the most regularly spoken language in the United States, but there are 224 other languages that are spoken in Los Angeles, which can make it easier for non-English speaking expats to get acclimated. 

If your neighbor doesn’t look like you, or has a different background,  welcome them anyway. As the French say “ vive la difference” !