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Re: Most homogeneous city?
Don and/or Karen Glass (dmgksg@xnet.com)
Tue, 22 Oct 1996 11:46:38 -0700
David Ferrier wrote:
>
> In article <53qk0a$mus@news2.cais.com>,
> packer@cais.cais.com (Charles Packer) wrote:
> >At a food festival here in Washington, D.C. I was struck by
> >the racial and physiognomic diversity of the crowd, even
> >though, as a long-time resident, I've come to take the
> >multicultural nature of the city for granted. Now, I wonder,
> >where in the U.S. or Canada could one have the _opposite_
> >experience, that is, be in a crowd in which everyone looked
> >alike? My guess is that it would most likely be on an Indian
> >reservation, or possibly in some small city in the Midwest or
> >South founded by some close-knit immigrant group. Can anybody
> >suggest specific candidates for the most homogeneous city in
> >USA/Canada?
> >
> Several upstate New York cities spring to mind--Peeksille, Tarrytown,
> Poughkeepsie.
>
> Part of the homogeity was due to the large proportion of townsfolk
> employed by IBM. I have never been to Rochester, New York, but I have
> heard real estate agents have asked prospective clients, "would you like
> the IBM end or the Kodak end of town."
>
> Michigan and Illinois small towns seemed pretty homogeneous to me--also
> Michigan. Kalamzoo springs to mind.
>
> I have spent a lot of time in Florida, and the people around the Tampa
> Bay area all seem to be stamped out with cookie cutters.
>
> Even the people of the south coast of California including the Beaches
> areas of Los Angeles seemed, to me, to be homogenous--everyone had
> beads, medicine bags, skateboards, and squints.
>
> --
> David Ferrier (whose father was Scottish)
> dferrier@datanet.ab.ca
>
> Nemo me impune lacessit (No one provokes me with impunity)
> Motto of the Scots Crown and all Scots Regiments
Having grown up around Rochester, NY, I would like to add that:
1. There is no IBM end of town. There has never been much IBM there.
I might believe the question to be the Xerox part vs. the Kodak part...
I don't think that this persists as much these days anyway.
2. Rochester is 6 or 7 hours away from Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie is
not homogeneous.
3. Rochester's ethnic groups include WASPs, Germans, Irish, Italians,
Jews, African-Americans, Hispanics (primarily Puerto Rican), and others.
Just FYI,
Karen in Naperville, IL
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