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  #81  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 7:02 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
It matters because most people's experience with DC is the city, not the far flung burbs. So when discussing how diverse a place feels, it's usually based on the experience of walking/biking/driving through downtown or central neighborhoods. By that metric, DC doesn't feel super diverse.

And your comparison to LA falls totally flat here. You don't have to be in East LA or the SE Gateway cities to know you're in a very Hispanic metro.
Well, yeah. Because LA metro is like 40% Mexican, while the DC area isn't even 10% any Latino country of origin. But the fact is that the vast majority of LA-area Mexicans don't live in LA proper, and most of the uber-Mexican LA neighborhoods aren't in the city proper. East LA and all those 95% Hispanic East Side towns aren't LA city. And the same rings true for Asians. Overwhelmingly not in the city proper.

And I disagree that all of LA feels Mexican. Not the Westside. Most visitors' experience of LA is based on the Westside and Hollywood, not the Hispanic streets in parts of downtown LA. Not my aunt's neighborhood in Coastal OC. Corona del Mar feels about as Mexican as Indiana.

I don't really get how it's relevant that downtown DC doesn't have an overwhelming Salvadoran presence or whatever, the fact is that the metro has a large Hispanic population, whether or not it's obvious in the core. Downtown LA has a visible Hispanic population because it was depressed for decades and the nearby East Side Hispanic population uses (or used) it as a commercial center.
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  #82  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 7:28 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Well, yeah. Because LA metro is like 40% Mexican, while the DC area isn't even 10% any Latino country of origin. But the fact is that the vast majority of LA-area Mexicans don't live in LA proper, and most of the uber-Mexican LA neighborhoods aren't in the city proper. East LA and all those 95% Hispanic East Side towns aren't LA city. And the same rings true for Asians. Overwhelmingly not in the city proper.

And I disagree that all of LA feels Mexican. Not the Westside. Most visitors' experience of LA is based on the Westside and Hollywood, not the Hispanic streets in parts of downtown LA. Not my aunt's neighborhood in Coastal OC. Corona del Mar feels about as Mexican as Indiana.
Boyle Heights is a city neighborhood, and probably the most iconic and storied Chicano neighborhood in the US. There are plenty of other neighborhoods in city limits that are very Hispanic-- Westlake, the entire NE Valley (Pacoima, Panorama City), most of SE LA, San Pedro, and yes, even parts of the West Side in areas like Palms and Mar Vista.

Also incorrect about the Asian community. There's obviously Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, but also Thai town in East Hollywood, another large Japanese enclave on Sawtelle on the West Side, etc.

But beyond these neighborhoods where people live, you encounter Hispanic and Asian people in LA as a part of daily life in a way that I didn't experience in DC. Those communities are a more integral part of the culture of LA than they are in DC, and it's not even close. Hell, even your aunt's white-dominated community of Corona Del Mar has a Spanish name!

DC's Chinatown is literally just a bunch of chain restaurants and stores with Chinese characters on the signs and buildings

Rita's Italian, err, Chinese? Ice...

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8998...7i16384!8i8192
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  #83  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 7:44 PM
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I grew up in Silver Spring, MD. During that period of the 1950s and 1960s, the only significant "minority" were Jews (WHITE Jews). Everybody was white. I knew ONE Asian girl in high a school (no blacks--blacks who didn't live in DC, lived in Prince George's County). She was of Japanese ancestry but I think her parents had been in the US a long time. I also knew one former Nazi rocket scientist's kid. Count that as the progeny of two recent former enemy nations. But both kids were fairly well liked as I recall.

Everybody was also more or less middle class: Some were sort of upper middle, some were edging toward lower middle--but nearly all were some flavor of middle. And a lot worked for the federal government is some middle management role. My Dad was an Industrial Engineer who worked for the Defense Department (Navy).

Let's just say the place was not diverse on any level I can imagine EXCEPT the presence of the substantial Jewish minority at a time when Jews were not as accepted as now (certain country clubs didn't accept them and they had their own--that sort of thing).

I can remember two serious crimes: My Dad got stopped for going through a stop sign (he was infuriated--thought the cop was disrespectful) and I got nabbed by the cops for burning leaves in a vacant lot without a permit (I was earning extra money raking leaves in peoples' yards).
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  #84  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 8:25 PM
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
DC's Chinatown is literally just a bunch of chain restaurants and stores with Chinese characters on the signs and buildings

Rita's Italian, err, Chinese? Ice...

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8998...7i16384!8i8192
Wow that's pretty interesting. The majority of the people in that streetview aren't even Chinese.

Contrast that with SF's Chinatown. SF not having visible immigrant populations within the city proper is certainly (fake) news to me.

https://goo.gl/maps/sg5ABvxAJkLngTDG9
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  #85  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 8:34 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Originally Posted by homebucket View Post
Wow that's pretty interesting. The majority of the people in that streetview aren't even Chinese.

Contrast that with SF's Chinatown. SF not having visible immigrant populations within the city proper is certainly (fake) news to me.

https://goo.gl/maps/sg5ABvxAJkLngTDG9
DC's Chinatown is a joke, but so what? LA's Chinatown is almost as bad. That doesn't mean that LA isn't one of the largest Chinese concentrations on the planet outside of Asia. Philly's Italian Market isn't Italian these days, Manhattan's Little Italy isn't Italian either, doesn't mean these cities aren't the U.S. centers of the Italian diaspora.

And SF Chinatown, while authentic, is hardly the center of the Bay Area's Asian population. Random SV sprawl areas like Cupertino, Fremont, and parts of San Jose have far more Asians.
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  #86  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 8:38 PM
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
DC's Chinatown is literally just a bunch of chain restaurants and stores with Chinese characters on the signs and buildings
I think a lot of D.C.'s Chinatown was wiped out when the NBA/NHL stadium was built? Or at least it used to seem larger to me when I was a kid in the 90s than it does now.
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  #87  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 8:47 PM
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
Rita's Italian, err, Chinese? Ice...

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8998...7i16384!8i8192
LMFAO

This is killing me.
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  #88  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 9:00 PM
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No one is claiming that DC is more diverse in population than LA. So let’s make sure that this doesn’t go anywhere near that direction.

DC does in fact have a significant Hispanic population, now numbering over 1M in the area. Again, the majority are foreign born.

No one is talking only about cities proper.

DC’s large diversity is much more prominent in its suburban areas, for reasons already mentioned. And it is highly integrated as the maps in the other thread display... likely the most diverse and integrated areas of any metro area, if you believe the map. There is extraordinary integration in the Maryland suburbs, and it is also present, but less so in the Virginia suburbs. Anyone who has spends time in these areas will experience a highly diverse mix of people living over a large geographic area, and which is difficult to find many places in the US.

I’m not talking about long-established ethnic enclaves. I’m taking about an integrated diverse population, Asian, black, Hispanic, white, etc. that pretty much lives in the suburbs together because DC is way too fucking expensive.

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  #89  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 9:21 PM
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Originally Posted by pj3000 View Post
In my experience, I guess I don't feel the full effect of global diversity that one gets in NY and DC, for instance. Those are the two places that I feel are the most diverse, not simply in terms of census race check box classification, but from the perspective of experiencing a seemingly much fuller, blended range of race, ethnicity, cultural, nationality, and religious variation. Granted, the types (older, much more dense and vibrant) of cities they are certainly lend themselves to increasing visibility of and interaction with their citizens, vs. a city lke Houston.
Well it was this paragraph that set this whole tangent about DC off. If DC's diversity lies in its suburban areas, how is it much different than Houston? Mentioning the 'old, dense, vibrant' nature of DC seemed to imply you were talking about the city...
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  #90  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 9:23 PM
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Right. . . I mean there's a not-so-insignificant population of people in Houston from every country that has any hydrocarbon industry. . . it's just that from a street level view most people are in their cars, but those retail strip malls are all packed full of international shops. . .

Also I wonder if the international communities have less of a "neighborhood" than older cities do. . . so like Hillcroft is touted as being a center for South Asian community in Houston (maybe I'm mistaken?), but aside from a few retail centers off of 69 it's not very visible. . . whereas a similar neighborhood in Chicago such as Devon Ave is wall to wall Indian/Pakistani. . . it's more like our Arab community which is more spread out with a more similar car-oriented epicenter on the far southwest side (I've never even ventured to it, but it's there apparently). . .

From my dial surfing while I was spending time in Houston it appears they also has a full-on desi radio station that I found interesting. . . it would be neat to see more of that. . .

. . .
Yeah. Most immigrant groups and ethnicities here are pretty scattered. Huge contrast compared to where I came from where old Italians and Polish groups remained clustered in their neighborhoods until they croaked off well into the 80's and 90's. Houston is pretty boring in the respect that when immigrants land here, they settle in among the 'locals' and not some colorful ethnic enclave.
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  #91  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 11:43 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
And SF Chinatown, while authentic, is hardly the center of the Bay Area's Asian population. Random SV sprawl areas like Cupertino, Fremont, and parts of San Jose have far more Asians.
SF's Chinatown is authentically the first home of quite a few CHINESE (not "Asian") immigrants who are poor. There are other neighborhoods where people from other Asian neighborhoods first settled: Indians and Southeast Asians in the Tenderloin, Philippines in a particular area of South of Market and so on. When they make some money, most move to the Richmond or Sunset Districts or, yes, to the suburbs.

But the neighborhoods you mentioned tend to be not so much Chinese as Southeast Asian because it's where a lot of Vietnamese refugees settled after that war and Philippinos, often because of a naval connection and the Navy bases were mostly in the East Bay.

Not all the Chinese newcomers, of course, are poor, however. Like Vancouver, SF gets its share of quite wealthy mainlanders looking to eastablish a base outside the reach of the CPC. And yes, many of those do buy expensive homes and condos in the city.
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  #92  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2021, 11:58 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
And SF Chinatown, while authentic, is hardly the center of the Bay Area's Asian population. Random SV sprawl areas like Cupertino, Fremont, and parts of San Jose have far more Asians.
Yes, a bunch of places that are way larger than SF's Chinatown also have a larger population.

nice observation lol

Other parts of SF also have a much larger Asian population than chinatown.
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  #93  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 12:02 AM
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Philippines in a particular area of South of Market
Southern SF as well, near the border of Daly City (which is 33% Filipino itself). Neighborhoods like the Excelsior and Crocker-Amazon.
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  #94  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 12:06 AM
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Yes, a bunch of places that are way larger than SF's Chinatown also have a larger population.

nice observation lol
What? That's the entire point.

I was responding to the claim that DC proper had fewer Latinos than suburban DC. DC doesn't even have 10% of the DC metro population. How could over 1 million Latinos be in a city proper of 680k?

The Bay Area has a gigantic Asian population, so obviously SF proper won't have a dominant share of the region's Asian population. Similarly, DC proper could have the most Latino-y neighborhood in the U.S., but it still won't dominate regional share. DC, Boston, SF, Miami and the like have city propers that are relatively small as a % of metro population.
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  #95  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 12:54 AM
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The Bay Area has a gigantic Asian population, so obviously SF proper won't have a dominant share of the region's Asian population. Similarly, DC proper could have the most Latino-y neighborhood in the U.S., but it still won't dominate regional share. DC, Boston, SF, Miami and the like have city propers that are relatively small as a % of metro population.
That's not actually true though. As of 2010, SF proper was 33% Asian. The Bay Area as a whole is 23% Asian.

Yes, there are some pockets of the Bay Area that have high concentrations of Asians greater than SF's 33%, but SF's Asian population is not insignificant or less "visible" by any measure. It might have lower volume due to being a small city, but the overall share is in line with other parts of the Bay. Santa Clara County, even with Cupertino, is at 32% Asian. Alameda County is at 26% Asian.
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  #96  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 12:56 AM
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That's not actually true though. As of 2010, SF proper was 33% Asian. The Bay Area as a whole is 23% Asian.

Yes, there are some pockets of the Bay Area that have high concentrations of Asians greater than SF's 33%, but SF's Asian population is not insignificant or less "visible" by any measure. It might have lower volume due to being a small city, but the overall share is in line with other parts of the Bay. Santa Clara County, even with Cupertino, is at 32% Asian. Alameda County is at 26% Asian.
I believe what Crawford means is that 23% of the total Bay Area is still a lot more people in absolute numbers than 33% of SF proper.
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  #97  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 1:05 AM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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That's not actually true though. As of 2010, SF proper was 33% Asian. The Bay Area as a whole is 23% Asian.
Of course it's true. Even if SF proper were 100% Asian, it wouldn't dominate the metro's Asian population.

SF, like DC, is not even 10% of the CSA, so can't numerically dominate any significant Bay Area population.
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  #98  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 1:13 AM
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Before you go, do A LOT of research about what you want to see and do because it's not a city that reveals its charms readily to the casual visitor. And New Orleans is an impossible act to follow.
Understood. I've been to New Orleans three times before and I love its walkability, but I am aware how unique it is.

I have been extensively streetviewing Houston and checking out various sites, and am tentatively thinking of staying in the Museum District. I don't mind walking, and December should be lovely weather, so that means sights like the Menil and the Westheimer corridor are within reach.

I am an astronomer, so Johnson Space Center will be worth the long trek out as well.
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  #99  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 1:31 AM
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Understood. I've been to New Orleans three times before and I love its walkability, but I am aware how unique it is.

I have been extensively streetviewing Houston and checking out various sites, and am tentatively thinking of staying in the Museum District. I don't mind walking, and December should be lovely weather, so that means sights like the Menil and the Westheimer corridor are within reach.

I am an astronomer, so Johnson Space Center will be worth the long trek out as well.
Museum district is a great area to base yourself in while you're here; close to the museums (obviously), Hermann Park, Zoo, plus the Montrose area and Downtown/ Midtown are right on the Red Line. NASA is the only one really out of the way but worth the trek and if you are a space nerd, besides the Burke Baker Planetarium, must check out the George Observatory but it's a bit of a haul.

Last edited by JManc; Apr 27, 2021 at 2:19 AM.
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  #100  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2021, 2:00 AM
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I have been extensively streetviewing Houston and checking out various sites, and am tentatively thinking of staying in the Museum District.
If you're staying in a hotel (and are not on a super-tight budget) there are three areas I would suggest. The Hotel ZaZa is dead center Museum District, literally next door and across the street from the Museum of Fine Arts. Also a stone's throw from the Museum of Natural Science and Hermann Park and right on the Metrorail line.

There's a new Westin Hotel in the Texas Medical Center that's in a renovated historically significant SOM mid-century modern tower also right on the same Metrorail line. The Medical Center might seem an odd place to stay, but it's actually one of the most urban areas in Houston, plus it's next to Hermann Park and also next to Rice University. Both beautiful areas.

I would also highly recommend staying Downtown. Either on Main Street or by Discovery Green Park and the Convention Center. There's a terrific Marriott on Main, as well as the Icon Hotel which is supposed to be very nice. Both are historic buildings. Both are also on the same Metrorail line. If you stay near Discovery Green, there is another Metrorail line that will take you to the Main Street Line.

I would personally love staying in any of those three, though I would probably go for Downtown simply because there is more stuff and it's better walking.

If you're staying in an Airbnb, then I'd go for either a house/townhouse in Montrose/Museum District or a loft apartment Downtown.


Damn! I haven't been home in over a year and every place I mentioned and more are my old stomping grounds.

Last edited by bilbao58; Apr 27, 2021 at 2:35 AM.
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