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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

I think your comment is a good one.

> Houston is one of, if not the, most ethnically diverse city in the US.

It's worth pointing out that this is in no small part because Houston is affordable.

I don't care for that kind of sprawl and would prefer other ways of building 'enough' to be affordable ( https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-... ) but still, it is affordable, and there are a lot of opportunities.

They had a mayor who was one of the first openly gay mayors of a major US city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annise_Parker

It's not the kind of place I want to live (I prefer an order of magnitude of around 100K), but when I actually learned something about Houston, I realized that I had some stereotypes that were not accurate.

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> It's worth pointing out that this is in no small part because Houston is affordable.

This is an under appreciated point. Texas in general, has some of the most organically diverse places I’ve been to. Low taxes, low regulation, and low housing costs have done a lot to attract a diverse set of people from the rest of the country, and from other countries. It’s a place where people of color are building families, businesses, and thriving.

This is so true. I grew up in California and was led to believe that it was one of the most diverse places yet it does not hold a candle to where I live now in Houston.

This article argues that segregation is prevalent in Houston.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/...

I don't doubt it. And at a statewide level, you'd have to look at news like the small-minded governor excluding legal refugees (something that other very red states like Utah haven't done).

But look up San Francisco's racial makeup vs Houston's and... you can make the case that there's at least a place in the same city for a lot more people in Houston.

> But look up San Francisco's racial makeup vs Houston's and

They're practically the same if you swap the black and asian populations. This makes a lot of sense: Asian immigrant populations came from the west coast, usually SF. Black populations started in the southeast, and its much easier to migrate from Mississippi to Texas than Mississippi to San Francisco.

San Francisco's black population fell by half at the same time that Houston's remained steady.

But I still see people from all different backgrounds interact more in Houston than any other city I have ever been to.

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