Kent is the eighth most ethnically diverse city in the nation, according to a Feb. 17 report by WalletHub.com.
Jersey City, New Jersey is the most ethnically diverse city in the United States. The city of Renton ranks 13th and Federal Way ranks 20th as three Washington cities are in the top 20. Four of the top 10 cities are in Maryland.
The U.S. today is a melting pot of cultures, thanks to increasing ethnic and racial diversification. If the trend continues, America will be more colorful than ever by 2045, at which point no single ethnic group will constitute the majority in the U.S. for the first time, according to WalletHub.
But with immigration reform still a hot-button issue, the U.S. ethnic landscape may change again in the near future. In light of this and the discussions of racial and ethnic equality that have been prominent in the past year, WalletHub took a snapshot of America’s current cultural profile, comparing more than 500 of the largest U.S. cities across three key indicators of ethnic diversity. It examined each city based on ethnicity and race, language and birthplace.
In order to determine the most ethnically diverse places in America, WalletHub compared 501 of the most populated U.S. cities across three key metrics: 1) ethnoracial diversity, 2) linguistic diversity and 3) birthplace diversity. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the most ethnic diversity.
WalletHub then determined city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its “Ethnic Diversity Score” and used the resulting scores to rank the cities.
Each city in the sample refers to city proper and excludes the surrounding metro area. WalletHub limited its sample to no more than 10 cities from each state.
This analysis was conducted using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index method, which is a commonly accepted measurement of market concentration that also works effectively as a general-purpose measure of diversity.
Jersey City had a ethnic diversity score of 72.62. Kent’s score was 68.74, Renton 66.25 and Federal Way 65.77.
Overall Rank
1 Jersey City, NJ
2 Gaithersburg, MD
3 Germantown, MD
4 Spring Valley, NV
5 Silver Spring, MD
6 New York, NY
7 Rockville, MD
8 Kent, WA
9 San Jose, CA
10 Oakland, CA
11 Paradise, NV
12 Bridgeport, CT
13 Renton, WA
14 San Francisco, CA
15 Orlando, FL
16 Sacramento, CA
17 Providence, RI
18 North Las Vegas, NV
19 Enterprise, NV
20 Federal Way, WA
Sources: Data used to create this ranking were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau.
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