9 ms·

Wouldn't diversity be an issue in a place like Ohio? My perception of the Midwest is that it's much more homogeneous and less inviting of minorities than Califo

by bllguo 9y ago

Wouldn't diversity be an issue in a place like Ohio? My perception of the Midwest is that it's much more homogeneous and less inviting of minorities than California. Consequently it might be hard to attract diverse talent to relocate there.

vforgione 9y ago
Not really, no. Especially in cities and immediate suburbs, the Midwest has diversity and is welcoming of new people. Maybe you should come to Chicago or Cleveland or Columbus or Milwaukee sometime and see for yourself.
- sidlls 9y ago
  Milwaukee, seriously? I've family who live there and I visit regularly. There is a higher percentage of African Americans there than in the Bay Area, but diversity beyond that is practically non-existent (by comparison).
- bluedino 9y ago
  Midwest cities will often be black or white, very few Asians, Indians, etc. And very segregated. Look at Milwaukee for instance: http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wuwm/files/styles/medium/public/201504/Census_Map.jpg http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wuwm/files/styles/med... Detroit and Chicago are not much different.
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  Cleveland is not diverse compared to most US cities, it's below average. Edit: Source: I lived in Cleveland ~20 yrs
muninn_ 9y ago
What do you mean by diverse talent?
pythonistic 9y ago
This is purely anecdote, but I found Seattle to be significantly less diverse than Cincinnati or Columbus. The larger cities in the Midwest tend to have governments with goals that are hard to distinguish from any of the Democrat controlled coastal cities.
- irrational 9y ago
  Portland Oregon is officially the whitest city in the USA (goes back to those early-mid 1900s laws that made it illegal to live in Oregon if you were black). So, yeah, the PNW is definitely not the place to be if you are looking for diversity.
- bllguo 9y ago
  Wow, very interesting. Thanks for the comment. Maybe correcting the perception of people like me is the real challenge!
- rconti 9y ago
  Yeah, the northwest is VERY white and has a strong Scandinavian influence. Meanwhile, I had a layover in Minneapolis and at the Mall of America, there were women in hijabs everywhere. Obviously I can't speak to the experience of minorities in various locations, but it's hardly fair to paint the midwest with the brush of non-diversity. Also, if anything, having your experience of "diversity" colored primarily by your interactions with highly-educated immigrant communities doesn't really help you understand how the broader immigrant communities integrate into the country as a whole.
yesimahuman 9y ago
Yes, I do think this is a challenge for the Midwest. However, the key to solving that I believe is to focus on university towns like Madison and Ann Arbor that do draw in more diverse talent. These towns are key to the entire Midwest tech scene.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >university towns >draw in more diverse talent Universities are rich and white with a pinch of token racial diversity. "Diverse talent" maybe. Diverse relative to any random small city people from a few states over haven't heard of they are not.
  - yesimahuman 9y ago
    My point was that many smaller midwestern cities have no reason for anyone not born there to come, except for college towns and a few with big employers. Those are some of the only assets that will help increase diversity over time.
spamizbad 9y ago
Major cities (and many metros) in the midwest are reasonably diverse.
exabrial 9y ago
That's an extremely narrow worldview. The diversity of Kansas for instance in 2010 is an analog of the diversity of California in 2000 when the dotcom was happening (It's actually hard to make a direct comparison, two massively different economies and initial populations). The major difference you might be alluding to is culture. I think in California major cities, it seems people react and demand quick action by the government to any perceived social injustice. In in the Midwest, I'd say perceived social injustices are usually corrected by community outreach, not government action. I think this is a major difference that should be studied. People in the midwest generally don't like the government in their business, as contrasted to the coastal cities, they appear to see it as the proper way to fix problems.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >People in the midwest generally don't like the government in their business, as contrasted to the coastal cities, they appear to see it as the proper way to fix problems. You probably don't want to be the "next SV" if you want to keep it that way.
  - exabrial 9y ago
    I chuckled, because some cities have gone that way, but then their cost advantage also did too. There's room for a healthy balance if people want to acknowledge and discuss some differences with respect to the other side's opinion. It's when we stop listening and looking for common ground when there are problems.
- mturmon 9y ago
  Tech job in LA and visit Kansas City, where I grew up, a couple times a year. Your analysis is lamentably parochial. There is no mapping between the "diversity" of Kansas in 2010 and that of California in 2000. Just not even close. Maybe there could be between California in 1985 (before I came here) and Kansas City now, that's how big the gap is. The idea that attitudes toward "action by government" are significant in explaining the absence of tech from Kansas is nuts. The density of talent and the presence of tech-smart capital are controlling variables.
MikeKusold 9y ago
As of 2010 in Cleveland: > Black or African American: 53.3% > White: 37.3% (33.4% Non-Hispanic Whites) > Asians: 1.8% (0.7% Chinese, 0.4% Indian, 0.2% Vietnamese, 0.2% Filipino) > Native American: 0.3% > Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders: 0.01% > Two or more races: 2.8% > Some other race: 4.5% > Hispanic and Latino Americans of any race: 10.0% (7.4% Puerto Rican, 1.3% Ecuadorian, 0.9% Mexican, 0.3% Dominican, 0.2% Guatemalan, 0.2% Salvadoran) > Amongst the city's white population, 9.9% were of German, 8.1% Irish, 5.0% Italian, 4.3% Polish, 2.8% English, 1.6% Slovak, and 1.5% Hungarian ancestry according to Census 2010. > 8,796 Clevelanders were born in Europe. Also note that the "white" ethnic groups are very active in Cleveland. There are Slovenian, Ukranian, Croatian, and Hungarian dance groups (probably more, but these are the ones I have first hand experience with). Columbus ranks 15th in the nation for LGBT populations. I now live in Denver, CO. That's a city where diversity is a real issue. Majority of people are white, bearded (males), and wear flannel (both). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Cleveland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Cleveland
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  Slovenian from Cleveland here and I can confirm that Ohio has some of the worst diversity in the country (I've lived in Cleveland, DC, Houston, Dallas, and SV) that I have experienced. The metropolitan neighborhoods are highly segregated by race and socioeconomic class. Summers regularly stay over 100 degrees and winters regularly stay under 32 for weeks at a time. It's far from the coasts and Lake Erie is disgusting (full of dead fish and debris). The people are generally racist and homophobic and like country music far too much for their geographic latitude.
  - justin66 9y ago
    Well, there's some hyperbole there, although I guess your profile does advertise "Rants and over-reactions." It's interesting that you're Slovenian, though. Here's a question for you. According to your definition of "diversity" does the fact that Cleveland has the largest Slovenian population outside of Slovenia make it more diverse? Does the fact that Cleveland's ethnicities tend to form their own neighborhoods indicate less diversity, somehow? I always thought it was cool that Beachwood had the highest concentration of Jews anywhere outside Israel, but maybe instead of viewing that as an indicator of Cleveland's diversity, people think my God, they're putting their Jews in the ghetto.
AskewEgret 9y ago
I think that you are falling into a West-Coast trap that says Asian = Diverse. San Francisco is 42% White, 33% Asian, 15% Latino, 6% Black. Chicago is 30% White, 30% Black, 30% Latino, 7% Asian. This is a great article: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/normal-america-is-not-a-small-town-of-white-people/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/normal-america-is-not-a...
- sidlls 9y ago
  The Bay Area's diversity is more than just "lots of Asians." Also, "Asian" is a pretty broad category. The numbers you quote just don't create an accurate picture. It's far more accurate to say that diversity in the Midwest practically starts and stops with "both black and white folks live here." Integration/segregation is also significantly different.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Yeah if you don't count the massive number of Middle Easterners in Detroit or Asians in Madison or the Somalians in Minneapolis or the Croatians in Kansas City or Greeks in Chicago and Detroit or the large Hispanic population in almost every city in the Midwest. Ignoring the actual, real world diversity, yep, "both black and whites" is accurate. Racism is well and alive here on HN, it seems.
    - Apocryphon 9y ago
      Not racism- geographical chauvinism, or elitism. It's distressing such beliefs emanating from HN even as we get bombarded with stories of SV's bubble culture. And I say that as a Bay Area native.
      - freehunter 9y ago
        I think it's racist to think that there are only "blacks and whites" in the Midwest, and even if that were true, that it would count against the diversity. Especially considering some of those "blacks" are actually Somalian, people from Africa with different beliefs and values who were fleeing their country's brutal civil war. Lumping them in with African Americans does a massive disservice to both Somalians and African Americans, especially coming from someone who said "Asian is too broad of a category". It's incredibly ignorant to say Midwest cities don't have people of other ethnic backgrounds, it belittles everything those Midwesterners have worked for in this country.

by bllguo 9y ago

vforgione 9y ago

Not really, no. Especially in cities and immediate suburbs, the Midwest has diversity and is welcoming of new people. Maybe you should come to Chicago or Cleveland or Columbus or Milwaukee sometime and see for yourself.

sidlls 9y ago
Milwaukee, seriously? I've family who live there and I visit regularly. There is a higher percentage of African Americans there than in the Bay Area, but diversity beyond that is practically non-existent (by comparison).
bluedino 9y ago
Midwest cities will often be black or white, very few Asians, Indians, etc. And very segregated. Look at Milwaukee for instance: http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wuwm/files/styles/medium/public/201504/Census_Map.jpg http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wuwm/files/styles/med... Detroit and Chicago are not much different.
tzakrajs 9y ago
Cleveland is not diverse compared to most US cities, it's below average. Edit: Source: I lived in Cleveland ~20 yrs

muninn_ 9y ago

What do you mean by diverse talent?

pythonistic 9y ago

This is purely anecdote, but I found Seattle to be significantly less diverse than Cincinnati or Columbus. The larger cities in the Midwest tend to have governments with goals that are hard to distinguish from any of the Democrat controlled coastal cities.

irrational 9y ago
Portland Oregon is officially the whitest city in the USA (goes back to those early-mid 1900s laws that made it illegal to live in Oregon if you were black). So, yeah, the PNW is definitely not the place to be if you are looking for diversity.
bllguo 9y ago
Wow, very interesting. Thanks for the comment. Maybe correcting the perception of people like me is the real challenge!
rconti 9y ago
Yeah, the northwest is VERY white and has a strong Scandinavian influence. Meanwhile, I had a layover in Minneapolis and at the Mall of America, there were women in hijabs everywhere. Obviously I can't speak to the experience of minorities in various locations, but it's hardly fair to paint the midwest with the brush of non-diversity. Also, if anything, having your experience of "diversity" colored primarily by your interactions with highly-educated immigrant communities doesn't really help you understand how the broader immigrant communities integrate into the country as a whole.

yesimahuman 9y ago

Yes, I do think this is a challenge for the Midwest. However, the key to solving that I believe is to focus on university towns like Madison and Ann Arbor that do draw in more diverse talent. These towns are key to the entire Midwest tech scene.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>university towns >draw in more diverse talent Universities are rich and white with a pinch of token racial diversity. "Diverse talent" maybe. Diverse relative to any random small city people from a few states over haven't heard of they are not.
- yesimahuman 9y ago
  My point was that many smaller midwestern cities have no reason for anyone not born there to come, except for college towns and a few with big employers. Those are some of the only assets that will help increase diversity over time.

spamizbad 9y ago

Major cities (and many metros) in the midwest are reasonably diverse.

exabrial 9y ago

That's an extremely narrow worldview. The diversity of Kansas for instance in 2010 is an analog of the diversity of California in 2000 when the dotcom was happening (It's actually hard to make a direct comparison, two massively different economies and initial populations). The major difference you might be alluding to is culture. I think in California major cities, it seems people react and demand quick action by the government to any perceived social injustice. In in the Midwest, I'd say perceived social injustices are usually corrected by community outreach, not government action. I think this is a major difference that should be studied. People in the midwest generally don't like the government in their business, as contrasted to the coastal cities, they appear to see it as the proper way to fix problems.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>People in the midwest generally don't like the government in their business, as contrasted to the coastal cities, they appear to see it as the proper way to fix problems. You probably don't want to be the "next SV" if you want to keep it that way.
- exabrial 9y ago
  I chuckled, because some cities have gone that way, but then their cost advantage also did too. There's room for a healthy balance if people want to acknowledge and discuss some differences with respect to the other side's opinion. It's when we stop listening and looking for common ground when there are problems.
mturmon 9y ago
Tech job in LA and visit Kansas City, where I grew up, a couple times a year. Your analysis is lamentably parochial. There is no mapping between the "diversity" of Kansas in 2010 and that of California in 2000. Just not even close. Maybe there could be between California in 1985 (before I came here) and Kansas City now, that's how big the gap is. The idea that attitudes toward "action by government" are significant in explaining the absence of tech from Kansas is nuts. The density of talent and the presence of tech-smart capital are controlling variables.

MikeKusold 9y ago

As of 2010 in Cleveland: > Black or African American: 53.3% > White: 37.3% (33.4% Non-Hispanic Whites) > Asians: 1.8% (0.7% Chinese, 0.4% Indian, 0.2% Vietnamese, 0.2% Filipino) > Native American: 0.3% > Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders: 0.01% > Two or more races: 2.8% > Some other race: 4.5% > Hispanic and Latino Americans of any race: 10.0% (7.4% Puerto Rican, 1.3% Ecuadorian, 0.9% Mexican, 0.3% Dominican, 0.2% Guatemalan, 0.2% Salvadoran) > Amongst the city's white population, 9.9% were of German, 8.1% Irish, 5.0% Italian, 4.3% Polish, 2.8% English, 1.6% Slovak, and 1.5% Hungarian ancestry according to Census 2010. > 8,796 Clevelanders were born in Europe. Also note that the "white" ethnic groups are very active in Cleveland. There are Slovenian, Ukranian, Croatian, and Hungarian dance groups (probably more, but these are the ones I have first hand experience with). Columbus ranks 15th in the nation for LGBT populations. I now live in Denver, CO. That's a city where diversity is a real issue. Majority of people are white, bearded (males), and wear flannel (both). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Cleveland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Cleveland

tzakrajs 9y ago
Slovenian from Cleveland here and I can confirm that Ohio has some of the worst diversity in the country (I've lived in Cleveland, DC, Houston, Dallas, and SV) that I have experienced. The metropolitan neighborhoods are highly segregated by race and socioeconomic class. Summers regularly stay over 100 degrees and winters regularly stay under 32 for weeks at a time. It's far from the coasts and Lake Erie is disgusting (full of dead fish and debris). The people are generally racist and homophobic and like country music far too much for their geographic latitude.
- justin66 9y ago
  Well, there's some hyperbole there, although I guess your profile does advertise "Rants and over-reactions." It's interesting that you're Slovenian, though. Here's a question for you. According to your definition of "diversity" does the fact that Cleveland has the largest Slovenian population outside of Slovenia make it more diverse? Does the fact that Cleveland's ethnicities tend to form their own neighborhoods indicate less diversity, somehow? I always thought it was cool that Beachwood had the highest concentration of Jews anywhere outside Israel, but maybe instead of viewing that as an indicator of Cleveland's diversity, people think my God, they're putting their Jews in the ghetto.

AskewEgret 9y ago

I think that you are falling into a West-Coast trap that says Asian = Diverse. San Francisco is 42% White, 33% Asian, 15% Latino, 6% Black. Chicago is 30% White, 30% Black, 30% Latino, 7% Asian. This is a great article: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/normal-america-is-not-a-small-town-of-white-people/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/normal-america-is-not-a...

sidlls 9y ago
The Bay Area's diversity is more than just "lots of Asians." Also, "Asian" is a pretty broad category. The numbers you quote just don't create an accurate picture. It's far more accurate to say that diversity in the Midwest practically starts and stops with "both black and white folks live here." Integration/segregation is also significantly different.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Yeah if you don't count the massive number of Middle Easterners in Detroit or Asians in Madison or the Somalians in Minneapolis or the Croatians in Kansas City or Greeks in Chicago and Detroit or the large Hispanic population in almost every city in the Midwest. Ignoring the actual, real world diversity, yep, "both black and whites" is accurate. Racism is well and alive here on HN, it seems.
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    Not racism- geographical chauvinism, or elitism. It's distressing such beliefs emanating from HN even as we get bombarded with stories of SV's bubble culture. And I say that as a Bay Area native.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      I think it's racist to think that there are only "blacks and whites" in the Midwest, and even if that were true, that it would count against the diversity. Especially considering some of those "blacks" are actually Somalian, people from Africa with different beliefs and values who were fleeing their country's brutal civil war. Lumping them in with African Americans does a massive disservice to both Somalians and African Americans, especially coming from someone who said "Asian is too broad of a category". It's incredibly ignorant to say Midwest cities don't have people of other ethnic backgrounds, it belittles everything those Midwesterners have worked for in this country.