Does a city having a large ethnic community make it well known in its "old country"?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

It's more interesting to consider smaller cities that are not as famous internationally. Is Minneapolis or Columbus well-known in Somalia? Are Lowell and Long Beach well-known in Cambodia?

I've been told that Winnipeg has some name recognition in the Philippines and Ukraine, due to a history of immigration.

[MonkeyRonin]

You'd almost be forgiven for thinking Toronto was the capital of the Azores rather than Lisbon.

Okay, slight exaggeration, but it does loom large there. It's pretty common in many places for people to have a reaction along the lines of "oh Toronto, my mom's neighbour's sister lives there!", but nowhere in my experience has it been as strong or as universal as in the Azores, owing no doubt to the significant population here - it's quite possibly the single biggest "Azorean city" after all.

Perhaps that'd be the case in places like Guyana and Trinidad as well.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

A lot of Bay Area folks have discovered with considerable chagrin that if they tell foreigners they are from Hayward or San Rafael or Mountain View or even San Jose or Oakland they may get blank looks so they have to claim to be from San Francisco. THAT get recognition.

I don't think there's many cities in the world apart from NYC where you can get recognition at a more granular level than that.

You can probably tell someone from Spain that you live in Brooklyn, or even the East Village. I doubt you'd have as much luck with Glendale.

[Alxx611]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Miami is interesting. It seems like many South Americans consider it America's second city. Even a lot of Europeans seem to elevate Miami's status far above what most Americans would rate it.

I'd agree with that. Seems like most Europeans I've met that have been traveling or living short-term in the US always make a point to drive Miami. Especially Eastern Europeans. They also want to see Key West, and of course Disney/Universal. Even the smaller beach cities on the Panhandle seem to really interest them. I think FL in general is what America is to them for some reason, and it has an established a reputation even before they come here.

More related to the topic of this thread, I think its because many Eastern Europeans live in FL for some length of time to do seasonal tourism work.

[MonkeyRonin]

These things work in reverse too - Hong Kong is the 10th largest "Canadian city" for instance, which no doubt results in a much stronger connection than there would otherwise be if it were strictly a one-way relationship.

[kool maudit]

Kosovars seemed very attuned to the Albanian diaspora cities of Vienna, Berlin, London, Graz, Stockholm, New York and to a lesser extent Toronto, Zurich and Munich. Not only was the sentiment there, but so were the plethora of Germanwings and EasyJet flights (this was 2012-15).

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

You can probably tell someone from Spain that you live in Brooklyn, or even the East Village.

It's not the dominant view, but I have noticed before taking trips to New York and mentioning family in Brooklyn that some Europeans seem to think it is an older, Portland-like East Coast city that is close but not attached to New York, and where hipsters live. Sort of like if Wilmington or Schenectady was a Portland.

[kool maudit]

More like how Wilmington is to Philly, rather, or Providence to Boston. It's like a neo-1700s sort of outlook.

[suburbanite]

The fact that Brooklyn can register as an independent city to Europeans is probably a testament to its (and New York in general) prominence in popular culture.

Like "how can a place I've seen in so many movies and tv shows not be its own city?"

Do Europeans view their cities as segmented as we do in North America? When I think large European cities, I think of them much more as one entity and unified. Moscow is Moscow and Paris is Paris for the most part. Apart from the distinction of the old vs. new city, they are very singular. Could be just a language thing though because London I definitely think of as more of a collection of neighbourhoods like an LA or New York. Sharing a language with the UK provides more distinction for places like Westminster, Whitechapel, Southwark, Chelsea, etc.

[kool maudit]

I think neighbourhoods rise up in consciousness as a result of reading or watching stories set in that neighbourhood.

Europe's linguistic fragmentation makes that harder, or rather limits awareness of neighbourhoods to language-regions. For instance, Berlin's Zoo station was a big part of Christiane F., but things like this fly below the radar when we speak of cities whose inhabitants don't share our language.

The US' astonishing 20th century cultural weight, and Britain's Victorian period before it, brought certain New York and London locales to something like a global consciousness. These are the only two empires of the mass media era to make such a spectacle of the sort of individualistic storytelling that features districts as characters.

(Martial lived near the Agrippa gate and was very colourful about that part of Rome, though!)

[kool maudit]

Within a language and culture, though, these things are as they always are. Swedes know the significance of Sodermalm and Ostermalm, and Quebecois know Saint-Henri and Outremont.

[Acajack]

Harlem I would say is pretty world-famous way beyond just the anglosphere.

[LA21st]

I've heard LA and California in general are well spoken of in Asian countries.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by jd3189

That's interesting. If only it actually lived up to that reputation.

Yea, hardly any one I've met in California talks about Miami/Florida really.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

A modern day example I know of is Newark NJ with Brazilians.

There are lots of Brazilians (and Portuguese) in Newark, specifically the ironbound neighborhood. The great majority, probably over 75% are from a specific region in the state of Minas Gerais near Governador Valadares.

Newark is well known, especially in Minas Gerais lovingly as ''The American Brazilian Favela'', as Newark is pretty run down and generally no better than the areas the immigrants came from.

It's an extremely insular neighborhood, and from what I've noticed people are very transient and usually stay 5 years or less before going back to Brazil. There are not too many long lasting Brazilians in the neighborhood. Most that come never learn English and never branch from outside of their immediate social circle.

Pompano Beach, FL is very Brazilian too. My parents are from Govanador Valadares!

[ilcapo]

Assyrians/Syriacs/Arameans have a well known diaspora in Södertälje south of Stockholm, Sweden. They dont have an "Old Country" however.

A city of 70.000, it is thought that half of the population are of Assyrian, Syriac, Aramean or Chaldean descent.

In the city, Aramaic-speaking immigrants have five churches, two bishops, two soccer teams (Assyriska FF and Syrianska FC), several shops, an Assyrian/Syriac Aramean association and the headquarters of the Syriac language TV Channels Suroyo TV and Suryoyo Sat.

[Urbanguy]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

You'd almost be forgiven for thinking Toronto was the capital of the Azores rather than Lisbon.

Okay, slight exaggeration, but it does loom large there. It's pretty common in many places for people to have a reaction along the lines of "oh Toronto, my mom's neighbour's sister lives there!", but nowhere in my experience has it been as strong or as universal as in the Azores, owing no doubt to the significant population here - it's quite possibly the single biggest "Azorean city" after all.

Perhaps that'd be the case in places like Guyana and Trinidad as well.

In regards to the Azores and North America -- I'd imagine that it would be similar to Boston and especially Providence as a huge portion of their Portuguese population hail from the Azores and the very long history they've had there dating back to the Whaling days.

In regards to Guyana and Trinidad it would definitely be New York, Toronto and London among the top 3 outside of their region.

[TexasPlaya]

Definitely not the biggest group in Houston, but Greeks to an extent. I’m half Greek and all the old family would talk about meeting up near the ship channel or Galveston after work. The original link has been shipping. I doubt most Greeks in the old country think of Houston as second home. Houston has the best Greekfest in the state.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

Definitely not the biggest group in Houston, but Greeks to an extent. I’m half Greek and all the old family would talk about meeting up near the ship channel or Galveston after work. The original link has been shipping. I doubt most Greeks in the old country think of Houston as second home. Houston has the best Greekfest in the state.

I wonder if the Houston-Greece connection is due to ship channel and Galveston since the Greeks are heaving into shipping.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Urbanguy

In regards to the Azores and North America -- I'd imagine that it would be similar to Boston and especially Providence as a huge portion of their Portuguese population hail from the Azores and the very long history they've had there dating back to the Whaling days.

In regards to Guyana and Trinidad it would definitely be New York, Toronto and London among the top 3 outside of their region.

It's a wonder there is anyone left on those islands. Of all places, my city of Gatineau, Québec has a pretty large, long-established Azorean community. My kids have multiple friends descended from Azoreans and I have two work colleagues sitting close to me who are also from the community.

The blue and white Azorean flag with a golden bird in the middle is quite familiar to me as you see it on cars here all the time.