WalletHub' List of 2021’s Most Diverse Cities in U.S. And the winner is...
 

...Surprise!

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I’ve only included the first 25 cities. The list has something like 500 cities. Thus the rankings are out of
500 cities, not just the 25 that are shown here.

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https://wallethub.com/edu/most-diverse-cities/12690

From the linked page: ”Note: With the exception of “Total Score,” all of the columns in the table above depict the relative rank of that city, where a rank of 1 represents the most diverse conditions for that metric category.”

How can NYC only score 6 on cultural diversity (lower the number lower the score), 10x worse than Fort Worth? What were the criteria that WalletHub had to deem it that?

Those numbers are the rank, not the score. Jersey City is number one for cultural diversity. New York is number 6. The lower the number, the higher the rank. WalletHub’s criteria are explained at the link.

I thought of that, but then why the change in methodology (lower the number/ rank, higher the score vs higher the number higher the score) in all the other columns?

In other words their presentation of information is misleading -all columns are scores, but one random one is a rank.

those ranks are all over the place. probably not a very useful measure...

No, ALL of the columns are rank, except for the one that is specifically the overall score. I think it may be confusing because I only included the first 25 cities. The full list goes into the hundreds.

From the linked page: “Note: With the exception of “Total Score,” all of the columns in the table above depict the relative rank of that city, where a rank of 1 represents the most diverse conditions for that metric category.”

They make more sense if you look at the entire list made up of hundreds of cities. I only included the first 25.

I have a hard time buying that these random cities in Maryland lead the nation in cultural diversity. More than LA? Nuh-uh.

the problem is that when the ranks are all over the place, the weighting really really matters and there are a million defensible ways to do it. They probably tweaked it until they got something halfway reasonable out of it.

For what it’s worth, they explain their methodology at the link in the original post.

LA is number 5. Ahead of any city in MD. Anyway, never was a surprise Houston was towards the top as one the most diverse cities.

If you look at the cultural diversity section specifically, LA is 23rd.

Ok. Cant explain that one.

My guess is they’re going strictly by evenness of percentages. Not sheer numbers. Gaithersburg is a high tech suburb of DC. It has a lower percentage of whites and a higher percentage of blacks than LA. Technically it probably is more diverse.

Not to us.

Houston is certainly one of the more diverse cities in the country, so I don't have an issue with it being number one. The rest of the list though, seems rather suspect. Thanks for sharing though! It's an interesting read.

SF Bay area missing
 

San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose not in top 25. I guess the economic diversity is low since poor can't afford to live there. But L.A. is expensive too and it is high on the list. San Diego and Long Beach made the list too, but not SF or Oakland. Odd.

If you notice, the list includes cities of all sizes. I would think a list of only major cities would have SF in the top 25.

This isn't surprising, the list makes sense. Texas and California cities, Greater New York, Washington, Chicago and northern GA landing in the top 25 sounds about right.

They're not "random" cities in Maryland.

If you had ANY tiny little bit of understanding about the area, then you would certainly understand how these DC suburbs could be included very high on the culutral diversity list.

And if you had ever actually been to these places and the DC suburbs in MD in general, then you would clearly see and experience that.

These are major hubs for immigrants; along the DC metro lines. These are the main areas where DC's ethnic diversity is located.

Having lived in the area, I can EASILY see how these cities could rank higher than LA and many places on a given cultural diversity index.