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Comment by stephenhuey | Hacker News Reader

Houston underwent the greatest ethnic transformation of any major U.S. city in my lifetime. 1 out of 4 Houstonians is now foreign-born, and a lot of people have moved to Houston from the northern U.S. in the last decade. Austin has voted differently from a lot of Texas long before any SV influx, and they may help diversify voting in the state but not nearly as much as changes in other parts of Texas.

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I’m not sure ethnic change translates into progressive social policies. Latino immigrants tend to be socially conservative. (This is why Republicans hyperventilating about immigrants changing the political landscape should calm themselves down and Democrats shouldn’t take anything for granted.)

SV immigrants probably a lot more socially progressive.

I’ll give you that, but more languages are spoken in Houston than in NYC or LA, so even though the Hispanic population is in the majority, there are a lot of other kinds of people as well. And in the past election, Biden received twice as many votes from Houston as he did from Austin due to the fact that for all its fame Austin is a much smaller city.

I tell people from outside Texas that Houston is the most diverse city in the US and they act like I'm shamelessly lying. With all the stuff there is about Texas government and politics to criticize, it's a very unique part of the country under significant tensions pulling the place and people in multiple contradictory directions.

It used to frustrate me but now it just makes me laugh when I see people talk about Dallas, Houston like they aren't two of the more diverse and largest metros in the country.

Yet when my Indian friends were getting a housing tour in Dallas, they were told how diverse the area is: they have Protestant, Baptist, and Catholic Churches in this neighborhood!

That didn’t impress them much (in fact it did the opposite) and they stayed in SF.

It certainly depends on the area. I'm within about 2 miles of a Buddhist template and multiple mosques. There are another sixty churches in the same area, but it is what it is.

It not about the religion. It’s that a local thought that was indicative of diversity. It spoke to the local mindset.

Dallas is very different than Houston and I made no claims about Dallas.

In practice it really isn’t. The city sprawls endlessly with no mass transit, so you end up staying in your corner of the greater Houston area all the time, which is 90% suburbs with no walkability. Urban Houston is more diverse yes, but once you get beyond 610 you lose all city benefits and all the neighborhoods are homogeneous and monocultural. Houston is ok. Greater Houston is a terrible place. Great food though.

Sounds like the Bay Area.

Sounds like most American metropolitan areas.

Scene: Houston, wedding-anniversary dinner in a French restaurant a few years ago. The server looked faintly Asian but sounded faintly French.

Me: Are you Vietnamese by any chance?

Her: No, I'm from Kazakhstan.

Me: That's so interesting; I didn't know we had Kazakhs here in Houston.

Her: Yes, there's about 5,000 of us.

I was gobsmacked, as our Brit friends might say.

Now if the blue cities in Texas can just somehow get rid of the conservative-rigged gerrymandering that gives the red rural areas such disproportionate power in state government.

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