Is NYC the most geopolitically diverse city in the US?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Docere

If my Chicago history is accurate, I'm guessing your mother's family is from the North Side and your father's from the South Side.

but of course!

we actually live ~3/4 of a mile from where both sets of my maternal great-grandparents raised their familes a century ago (just south of us down in north center, st. ben's parish; my maternal grandparents actually met each other in kindergarten at the parish school).

my paternal side was all south side, but i'm not aware of any relatives of mine still living down there anymore. they all white-flighted out to the west & southwest burbs (and beyond). i do remember visiting one of my dad's uncle's houses down in ashburn a couple times as a kid back in the 80s, but he's long since passed on. My paternal grandparents sold the house my dad grew up in down in Mt. Greenwood in the late-70s when I was a toddler, when they downsized to a condo out in Downers Grove.

[Docere]

Single ancestry:

Irish

New York 464,591 27.5%
Boston 346,082 36.4%
Philadelphia 278,901 27%
Chicago 232,791 24.1%

Italian

New York 979,416 45.2%
Philadelphia 252,383 34.2%
Boston 193,966 35%
Chicago 182,173 31.7%

Polish

Chicago 321,851 44%
New York 252,289 38%
Philadelphia 69,378 26.6%

[Docere]

Not surprising really. Boston is clearly the Irish American capital (nothing compares to the South Shore concentration), in NYC Italians are the largest white ethnic group and had significant post-war immigration, and Chicago is of course the Polish American capital and has a lot of Polish immigrants.

[Docere]

Looks like over 200,000 Italian immigrants came to the Tri-State area in the post-war period.

Which explains the high rate of Italian language retention in the outer borough Italian neighborhoods and some heavily Italian American suburbs. And a distinctive political culture.

Born in Italy and arrived after 1950, 1980 census

New York 148,664
New Jersey 51,470
Illinois 28,772
California 27,024
Massachusetts 26,612
Connecticut 25,608
Pennsylvania 25,239
Michigan 12,226
Ohio 12,092

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Docere

You have some rather extreme "sorting" of white ethnic neighborhoods in NYC.

There's other visible pockets like Italian American South Philly or Chicago's NW Side Polish concentrations (bolstered by 80s/90s immigration) but not to the same degree.

Thats mostly because white people in NYC (outside of transplants from the midwestern states) are all fairly recent immigrants, similar to other NYC ethnic groups.

[Crawford]

Not sure about "all", but yeah, the white ethnics in NYC proper tend to be of semi-recent immigrant stock. A white ethnic family in Bay Ridge or Forest Hills or Throgs Neck, or really anywhere in Staten Island, is likely to have parents or grandparents of immigrant stock, at least. The migration is probably within someone's living memory.

Italians, Greeks, Polish, former Soviets, former Yugoslavia, Albanians, Middle Easterners. Irish and Germans would be exceptions (except for Irish in Woodlawn, Bronx, which are of fairly recent immigrant stock).

Orthodox Jews, to me, are a different category, with somewhat deeper roots, though pretty sure their ranks were replenished in WW2-era flight.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Docere

Looks like over 200,000 Italian immigrants came to the Tri-State area in the post-war period.

Which explains the high rate of Italian language retention in the outer borough Italian neighborhoods and some heavily Italian American suburbs. And a distinctive political culture.

Born in Italy and arrived after 1950, 1980 census

New York 148,664
New Jersey 51,470
Illinois 28,772
California 27,024
Massachusetts 26,612
Connecticut 25,608
Pennsylvania 25,239
Michigan 12,226
Ohio 12,092

^ 399,121 post-1950 Italian immigrants living in the US in 1980, but this immigration was much more directed to NYC area.

[Docere]

NYC's Black population, I believe, is majority immigrant origin. There are likely more with roots in the Caribbean than there are roots in the Southern US.

Does NYC actually have the largest "African American" population (i.e. southern roots) in the US?

Hard to know. I think there are just under 2 million blacks in NYC and 3 million or so in the metro. If you subtract out those of West Indian and African immigrant origin, would metro NYC have more African Americans than metro Atlanta? Would NYC have more African Americans than the city of Chicago?

It might, but not sure.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Orthodox Jews, to me, are a different category, with somewhat deeper roots, though pretty sure their ranks were replenished in WW2-era flight.

NYC peaked at around 2 million Jews in the 1950s.

Today it's about half that, but a very different Jewish population. The Hasidim, who arrived post-WWII, had small numbers initially but high birth rates and their numbers are now huge 70 years later. Then you had the FSU immigration in the 1970s and again in the 1990s.

According to NY Jewish survey of 2011, 30% of NY area Jews are foreign born.

The outer borough Jewish neighborhoods all have an Orthodox and/or immigrant character, for the most part.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

NYC peaked at around 2 million Jews in the 1950s.

Today it's about half that, but a very different Jewish population. The Hasidim, who arrived post-WWII, had small numbers initially but high birth rates and their numbers are now huge 70 years later. Then you had the FSU immigration in the 1970s and again in the 1990s.

According to NY Jewish survey of 2011, 30% of NY area Jews are foreign born.

Right, but you have to look at the region. Most of the non-Orthodox population didn't disappear but moved into suburbia. The total regional Jewish population has been pretty stable; it just suburbanized and then started growing Orthodox.

When NYC proper had 2 million Jews there were barely any Jews outside city proper. Even places like Five Towns and Great Neck barely had Jews until around 1960. By 1970 they were probably majority Jewish, or pretty close. Of course, by 1970, the great Jewish concentrations in eastern Brooklyn and the west Bronx had mostly disappeared.

Originally Posted by Docere

The outer borough Jewish neighborhoods all have an Orthodox and/or immigrant character, for the most part.

The non-gentrified neighborhoods, yeah. Outside of the core precincts, there is no remaining Reform or Conservative non-immigrant Jewish neighborhood. A generation ago, Riverdale in the Bronx and some outer sections of Brooklyn and Queens would have still qualified, but no longer. Riverdale leans Orthodox (and is pretty gentrified) and immigrant waves and/or Orthodox dominate outer Brooklyn/Queens

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, but you have to look at the region. Most of the non-Orthodox population didn't disappear but moved into suburbia. The total regional Jewish population has been pretty stable; it just suburbanized and then started growing Orthodox.

When NYC proper had 2 million Jews there were barely any Jews outside city proper. Even places like Five Towns and Great Neck barely had Jews until around 1960. By 1970 they were probably majority Jewish, or pretty close. Of course, by 1970, the great Jewish concentrations in eastern Brooklyn and the west Bronx had mostly disappeared.

Plenty of Jews in the NYC suburbs, but Jewish communities (outside of the Orthodox) are rapidly vanishing, given secular/Reform Jews outmarry at a greater than 50% rate, and many of their children do not self-identify as Jews.

[C.]

While it's en vouge to have smaller families these days, I sometimes wonder about the Hasidic population in the NYC metro area. In 50 years time, they're going to be a sizeable population. Judaism will not quiet surpass the Christian population, but it will probably be close.

[C.]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I grew up in metro NYC, and like half of my friend network was Jewish. Like one of them married someone else who was Jewish and had kids. The rest married gentiles or didn't have kids.

Come to think of it, not one of my Jewish friends married someone who was also a Jew.

[chris08876]

Might be more of a niche within the Jewish community to do that, but a vast majority aren't "into it". I agree with JMKeynes on this. Its been on a decline lets just say, intermarriage. As with religion, a decline.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, but you have to look at the region. Most of the non-Orthodox population didn't disappear but moved into suburbia. The total regional Jewish population has been pretty stable; it just suburbanized and then started growing Orthodox.

When NYC proper had 2 million Jews there were barely any Jews outside city proper. Even places like Five Towns and Great Neck barely had Jews until around 1960. By 1970 they were probably majority Jewish, or pretty close. Of course, by 1970, the great Jewish concentrations in eastern Brooklyn and the west Bronx had mostly disappeared.


The non-gentrified neighborhoods, yeah. Outside of the core precincts, there is no remaining Reform or Conservative non-immigrant Jewish neighborhood. A generation ago, Riverdale in the Bronx and some outer sections of Brooklyn and Queens would have still qualified, but no longer. Riverdale leans Orthodox (and is pretty gentrified) and immigrant waves and/or Orthodox dominate outer Brooklyn/Queens

Agreed, they didn't disappear. There are about 2 million Jews in the metro.

[Docere]

But population losses of the "old" Jewish population from NYC to suburbs, and outside of NYC region to other parts of the country, were offset by Hasidic and immigrant growth. It's obviously a much more diverse Jewish community than it was 50 or 60 years ago.

You'll find your secular and Reform populations in Manhattan, gentrified Brooklyn, Westchester and much of NJ and CT that look more like the typical American Jewish demographic. But other areas - Brooklyn and Queens, the Five Towns and Great Neck on Long Island, Lakewood - lean Orthodox and/or immigrant.

[C.]

Originally Posted by Docere

But population losses of the "old" Jewish population from NYC to suburbs, and outside of NYC region to other parts of the country, were offset by Hasidic and immigrant growth. It's obviously a much more diverse Jewish community than it was 50 or 60 years ago.

You'll find your secular and Reform populations in Manhattan, gentrified Brooklyn, Westchester and much of NJ and CT that look more like the typical American Jewish demographic. But other areas - Brooklyn and Queens, the Five Towns and Great Neck on Long Island, Lakewood - lean Orthodox and/or immigrant.

I'm also watching Lakewood, NJ.

Census Pop. %±
1900 3,094 —
1910 5,149 66.4%
1920 6,110 18.7%
1930 7,869 28.8%
1940 8,502 8.0%
1950 10,809 27.1%
1960 16,020 48.2%
1970 25,233 57.5%
1980 38,464 52.4%
1990 45,048 17.1%
2000 60,352 34.0%
2010 92,843 53.8%
2020 135,158 45.6%

Explosive growth since WW2. Quickly becoming one of New Jersey's biggest cities.

[Crawford]

Lakewood is almost certainly the largest Orthodox concentration on earth outside of Israel and Brooklyn. Also, adjacent areas of Toms River and Jackson are fast becoming Orthodox. There will be a huge Ocean County Orthodox voting bloc.

[chris08876]

^^^

Yeah its quite sizable. A few years back I randomly discovered Lakewood driving to a client site and yeah... at that moment... I knew something was up.

On a side note, but the place where my female partner is from, Highland Park NJ, has a huge Jewish population. Very nice neighborhood too and you'll know your in the Jewish side of Highland Park because the roads are of excellent quality and schools too. Now the other parts of Highland Park.. eh... the town doesn't care about those sections and the roads and schools suck...but alas... local politics or some fine NJ local BS dynamics.

Take note of that in some NJ locations. Some towns just do that.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

NYC's Black population, I believe, is majority immigrant origin. There are likely more with roots in the Caribbean than there are roots in the Southern US.

Does NYC actually have the largest "African American" population (i.e. southern roots) in the US?

Hard to know. I think there are just under 2 million blacks in NYC and 3 million or so in the metro. If you subtract out those of West Indian and African immigrant origin, would metro NYC have more African Americans than metro Atlanta? Would NYC have more African Americans than the city of Chicago?

It might, but not sure.

The African American-only population in NY metro isn't larger than Atlanta's at this point, but is probably around the same size as Chicago's now. But there are a lot of Black people in NY metro that have both African American and non-American ancestry, so it would be very hard to measure.