America's whitest city?

[Spearmint Rhino]

What would our US posters consider to be America's whitest city?

The reason I ask is that I caught a trailer for the next episode of American Idol last night, set in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I couldn't help but notice that in all the long shots of the queue, or helicopter shots of the crowd, there wasn't a single black face - a huge difference from every other city the show has visited.

[ursus arctos]

America's whitest city?

Salt Lake City would have been my nomination.

My understanding is that the Latino population has increased in recent years, but it has never had a black population to speak of (to the extent that it the basketball team has at times had difficulty in convincing black players to join the club).

SLC is a very, very, strange place.

[Anton Gramscescu]

America's whitest city?

Salt Lake City would be a good shout. Off the top of my head, Boise, Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming and Montpelier, Vermont would be in there, too.

[Spearmint Rhino]

America's whitest city?

I just Googled "America's whitest city", and the answer that kept coming up was somewhere called Livonia, Michigan.

But that doesn't really count cos nobody's heard of it and it has an even smaller population than Britain's whitest city (Norwich).

[evilC]

America's whitest city?

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

I just Googled "America's whitest city", and the answer that kept coming up was somewhere called Livonia, Michigan.

But that doesn't really count cos nobody's heard of it...

His Name Is Alive fans would have, SR. All three of them.

Ursus Arctos wrote:

Salt Lake City would have been my nomination.

My understanding is that the Latino population has increased in recent years, but it has never had a black population to speak of (to the extent that it the basketball team has at times had difficulty in convincing black players to join the club).

God, I hated John Stockton!

That is all.

[ursus arctos]

America's whitest city?

Livonia is a "white flight" suburb of Detroit.

The places Gramsci/Abu mentions are also very white, but smaller than SLC. You could also find candidates in the Dakotas and Maine, but none of them are likley to host American Idol.

[Anton Gramscescu]

America's whitest city?

It's also a suburb of Detroit, which (not unrelatedly) is one of America's blacker cities. And it's right next to another suburb, Dearborn, which hosts America's largest concentration of Arabs. So, unlike Salt Lakers, Livonians probably do run into non-white faces from time to time. Just not at school.

edit: clearly not fast enough...

[Spearmint Rhino]

America's whitest city?

evilC wrote:

His Name Is Alive fans would have, SR. All three of them.

More of a Someday My Blues Will Cover The Earth person, myself. Gave that another listen recently. Wow, what a record. But let us not digress...

[G-Man]

America's whitest city?

and it has an even smaller population than Britain's whitest city (Norwich)

500 years ago, Norwich was England's second biggest city. Even then, not a black face in sight.

[The Purple Cow]

America's whitest city?

"More of a Someday My Blues Will Cover The Earth person, myself. Gave that another listen recently. Wow, what a record. But let us not digress..."

No, let us.

'One Year' is a fan-tas-tic song.

[Banana Banana]

America's whitest city?

according to BBC england's whitest is Easington in Co. Durham

[ad hoc]

America's whitest city?

Montpelier VT is not a city in any but the most obscure definition. OK it's the state capital but the population is something like 7000. It's barely even a town.

Plus VT while being a whitish state all round, does have a fairly large transient population of asylum seekers (esp in the north of the state) given its proximity to the Canadian border and Montreal. I think St Albans, VT is one of the biggest INS centres in the country (though INS is no longer INS but Homeland Security)

[Anton Gramscescu]

America's whitest city?

It's that small, huh? I always just assumed it had suburbs somewhere that I couldn't see for all the trees.

[ad hoc]

America's whitest city?

I underestimated slightly. Wikipedia has it at 8035.

[Tubby Isaacs]

America's whitest city?

I'm amazed to see that even in 2000 Houston had half a million black inhabitants. I've been there 6 times and come across 2 of them.

[Lucia Lanigan]

America's whitest city?

Anecdotally, Norwich has become much greyer over the last decade or so. Every time I go back there, I see more black and Asian faces about; wouldn't surprise me if it had dropped a fair way down the list of "whitest" cities by now.

[Wyatt Earp]

America's whitest city?

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

I'm amazed to see that even in 2000 Houston had half a million black inhabitants. I've been there 6 times and come across 2 of them.

Wouldn't it be even more amazing if it didn't, given where the city is? (About 100 miles from the Louisiana state line, I mean?)

[Femme Folle]

America's whitest city?

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

I'm amazed to see that even in 2000 Houston had half a million black inhabitants. I've been there 6 times and come across 2 of them.

Where did you think the displaced Katrina victims ended up? Salt Lake City?

[Wyatt Earp]

America's whitest city?

I see on Wikipedia that Champaign County, IL is over 95% white, which I must admit comes as no surprise.

[ursus arctos]

America's whitest city?

And the perecentage would be even higher if one excluded the university.

Houston has long had a significant black population; it is just very highly segregated, which accounts for Tubby's experience.

[delicatemoth]

America's whitest city?

I remember when I first went to Ipswich I was genuinely shocked at how white it was. That was 15 years or so ago.

[Wyatt Earp]

America's whitest city?

Lewes, where my Dad lives, has almost exactly the same proportion of white folks as Champaign, IL. Again, this doesn't come as a shock.

[Duncan Gardner]

America's whitest city?

Just out of idle curiosity, can anyone link to a table comparing British cities? Greater Belfast (population about 500,000) has about 10,000 non-white residents, the largest ethnic group being Chinese.

[Disco Child Ballads]

America's whitest city?

Hull struck me as very white when I was at University there (which was over 10 years ago). I remember the muslim students there complaining about there being only one halal butchers in all of Hull. This butchers could therefore get away with charging outrageous prices.

[Duncan Gardner]

America's whitest city?

Belfast's Jewish population (declined to about 300) receives kosher foods etc. from Manchester.