Most (relatively) diverse small cities not in a major metro area

April 10, 2023 2:13 PM

Do there exist any small cities that are not part of a major metro area or the suburbs of a big city, yet with some semblance of racial and/or ethnic diversity?

For context, I live in a very un-diverse small city in "flyover country" USA and one of the things I love about living here is the scale: it only takes 15 minutes to drive across the whole city. Sure, there are some amenities and resources we just don't have (the next closest city is 1.5 hours away, and the next closest *larger* city is 3 hours away), but I get to live life on a smaller, quieter scale.

Googling for "most diverse small city" gets me results like Oakland, CA and Jersey City, NJ, which don't at all have the feel I'm describing here. I think the prerequisite for a small city to actually FEEL small is that it has to be the biggest city-like thing in the area, not just one of a dozen cities surrounding a metro hub.

So I guess I'm wondering, is lack of diversity an inevitable price to pay for this life? Are there any small cities in the USA with some urban walkability, where all of the fun things/people stay within a 20-minute radius, yet the population is not 80-90% Caucasian?

posted by serelliya to Travel & Transportation (24 answers total)

Best answer: I'll put in a plug for Richmond, VA. (Demographics from the same site.)
posted by emelenjr at 2:21 PM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

I know you already provided one criteria, but can you provide any more criteria for what constitutes “small“ for you? I can absolutely give you some answers, but need parameters on small (for example, my city is midsize, and I would consider it small, especially by, the comparison of say Oakland. But it’s probably not small for you.)
posted by joycehealy at 2:36 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have a few, based on living or visiting there frequently:

Jersey City, NJ: Hear me out. Pretty quiet place outside of downtown, doesn't feel too big to me and lots of walkable areas where you can encounter shopping, schools, and doc offices in 20 minute walk or drive.

Hoboken, NJ: Pretty even mix of people with a small town vibe. Convenient to larger places in NJ and NY, with lots of bikes and walkers almost any time.


Sugarland and Missouri City, TX: same as above, further away from Houston, TX. Immigrant heavy. Pretty easy to drive to grocery stores and schools within 15 minutes, which is not easy in Texas. You can walk around shopping centers.

Royse City, TX: More suburban feel but requires car, outside Dallas, TX.

Arlington VA: Has some walkable theater, shopping, apartments, and diners in areas like Shirlington.
posted by Freecola at 2:37 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I'm not looking to move any time soon, so this is just an informational/curiosity question!

Let's ballpark "small city" at under 100k population.
posted by serelliya at 2:40 PM on April 10, 2023

I mean, Hilo, Hawaii would fit, but the baseline conditions for Hawaii in terms of geography and demographics are so different that I would hesitate to include it.
posted by DebetEsse at 2:48 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I've recently read some good things (NYT article) about the revitalization of Peoria, Illinois – the classic "American small city" – which as of the 2020 census is 53% white and has a population of 113,150. It's about a three-hour drive to either Chicago or St. Louis.
posted by lisa g at 2:52 PM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Champaign, Illinois would fit the bill pretty well. 83k people. 90 minutes to Indianapolis; 2 hours to Chicago; 3 hours to St. Louis. Wikipedia says it's 53% white; 18% Black; 17% Asian.

It's a college town, so you get some built-in diversity and education level there. It's a nice little town outside of the University, too.

Urbana right next door is similar, with an even more small-town feel.

I'd imagine that you'd get similar demographics from Columbus Ohio and Ann Arbor Michigan.
posted by hydra77 at 2:53 PM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Charlottesville, VA isn’t the most diverse but looks like it’s only 63% Caucasian. Population is slightly under 50,000 (not counting the college students).
posted by lomes at 3:04 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'd imagine that you'd get similar demographics from Columbus Ohio and Ann Arbor Michigan.

Columbus, Ohio is not small - about 1.7 million people, including the Metro area. Worst air pollution of all US cities according to CNN, and even the ultra-conservative The Dispatch local newspaper called it out today for it's "inadequate to non-existent" public transportation (hence, I'm sure, the shitty air quality). While there are some small pockets of unique identity, Columbus is kind of a mecca for corporate testing, so diversity is of the "Wendy's or Olive Garden" type.
posted by Silvery Fish at 3:08 PM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

A lot of college towns would probably fit your criteria. I’ll add Lawrence, Kansas.
posted by FencingGal at 3:12 PM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I guess it depends on what you mean by diverse, but much of the Rust Belt would work. For example, I grew up in a town of about 60k that’s about 20% black. That’s not, like Oakland, but it’s significantly higher than the national average, and nearly double the surrounding county. And my experience was even more diverse, because most of the white people were old, while the nonwhites were generally in their 30s and 40s or their children. The schools I went to were all majority-minority, even though I lived in the whitest part of town. I bet some elementary schools were 80% black.

On the other hand, there are towns in the South (e.g., Tuskegee, Alabama) that are >95% black.

Columbus is the 14th-most populous city in the US, with a higher population in the city proper than San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, or Boston, not much less than Dallas. If we’re calling those small towns, the term is meaningless. It’s also like twice as white as cities like Dallas or Philly.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:19 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Sorry for the derail about Columbus. I should have checked its population. I didn't realize how large it was!
posted by hydra77 at 3:22 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Santa Fe, NM is very walkable, and more than 50% Latino (not especially diverse in terms of other races, though).

(I'm not going to cross-reference a list of Walk Friendly Communities and one of ethnically-diverse US cities, but I suppose someone could.)
posted by box at 3:31 PM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I have some answers, with some of the caveats that kevinbelt offered - I didn't ask for parameters on "diversity" (is a town that's 90% Black "diverse"? Is having a varied population enough, or do you want varied services (international groceries, houses of worship in a variety) and lots of languages spoken? Etc.)

So, from what you said, I downloaded 2020 Census Data (you can't break it, go mess with the website), pulled data for the count of folks who said "white alone" for every metropolitan statistical area and micropolitan statistical area in the country, did the math for the percentage of white folks, cut out everywhere with a population of less than 25k and more than 100k and 60% or more white-alone folks (I picked 60% because that's about the percentage for white alone in the U.S. at this point), and the result is here.

CAVEATS, as there always are with geographic and Census data:
1) Folks of Arabic/Middle Eastern heritage are counted as white by the Census unless they themselves check another box.
2) Because of the way the filtering is set up on the Census data site, white here includes both white non-Latinx/Hispanic and Latinx/Hispanic.
3) MSAs do include surrounding areas (that's the definition of an MSAs), which you said you were hoping to avoid, but the "place" data file (which is what you'd more recognize as a city as you're describing it) is ... unwieldy. There's A LOT of places in the United States.

So there's some caveats, but this should get you started, for the quick and dirty version. I can play around with the data more this week if you're really curious and want to provide some more exact ratios on what "diverse" means to you, and I could probably drop the data into ArcMap later in the week and run a buffer to check to the "I want it to be the largest thing in the area" effect, but right now, I really need to stop avoiding grading, lol.
posted by joycehealy at 3:35 PM on April 10, 2023 [10 favorites]

Best answer: Roanoke VA is one possible candidate. It is right around 100K population, decently walkable, definitely everything within that 15-20 drive, even has somewhat usable transit. Looks like it is about 60% white-only population.
posted by flug at 4:04 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Many small towns in the US South in former plantation areas will have sizeable populations of Black people, many the descendants of formerly enslaved people.
posted by bluedaisy at 5:15 PM on April 10, 2023

Many cities in New Mexico have about half Hispanic. And Gallup has about half Native American.
posted by NotLost at 6:23 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

The city I would have suggested doesn't fit your criteria because there's a big city within a half hour, but I'd suggest that college towns that have a high international student population might fit your bill in general.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:17 PM on April 10, 2023

I live in Providence, RI which is bigger than you're looking for (~200K) plus not great on walkability as multiple highways bisect the city but it's really diverse (34% non-Hispanic or Latino white) which lends itself to excellent food and culture. Very much enjoying the vibe here since I arrived last summer.

I haven't ever been there so can't saw what it's like but I once applied for a job in Dover, Delaware and was surprised to learn that the city is less than 50% white with a large Black population. It's very small, around 40K. Sounds like an interesting place and probably more affordable than bigger cities in the Northeast. Based on this n of 2 I'd say look into state capitals.
posted by emd3737 at 4:48 AM on April 11, 2023

From what I've heard, Madison, Wisconsin might fit the bill, although looking at pure numbers it might be a bit whiter than you want. (I've never been.)
posted by madcaptenor at 6:34 AM on April 11, 2023

The southern border tip of Texas. It's total population is like 2.5 million, but there is no major city nearby, and it's like 80% Hispanic, 20% the rest. And if you count the Mexico side, it bumps up to like 4 million people. Google the Rio Grand Valley MSA. McAllen might be the biggest city at like 150k.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:32 AM on April 11, 2023

I live in suburban Madison, WI, which is a little larger than you want, but probably would tick your other requirements.
posted by notjustthefish at 9:04 AM on April 11, 2023

Are there any small cities in the USA with some urban walkability, where all of the fun things/people stay within a 20-minute radius, yet the population is not 80-90% Caucasian?

If your definition of diversity is simply limited to being less than 80% caucasian, Santa Fe is well within that less than 40% of city residents identifying as white. https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-santa-fe-nm/#:~:text=With%20a%20diversity%20score%20of%2080%20out%20of,located%20in%20the%20west%20parts%20of%20Santa%20Fe.

But it might not be what you are thinking as "diversity" in other ways. If Santa Fe doesn't fit that criteria you might want to be more specific.

some urban walkability, where all of the fun things/people stay within a 20-minute radius

Depending on what you mean by "some", how you define fun things and people, and how small you want to go, other places in New Mexico might fit.
posted by yohko at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2023

I'll third the suggestion of Roanoke, Va., which is in joycehealy's table as well as flug's comment.

I had the mistaken impression of it as a redneck place, unfriendly to POC, but a Black woman friend of mine has lived there for more than 15 years now. She moved from a major metro, found she liked it, joined a choral group and book club, started a business, and bought a house. She's very happy there. And it's right up against the Blue Ridge mountains, which is a gorgeous part of the country. And four colleges close by if you like that environment. Heck, writing this comment I've got myself convinced to take a look for my planned relocation!
posted by martin q blank at 12:13 PM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]