Professor Michael J. White was featured in WalletHub's recent article about the Most & Least Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S. 

Ask the Experts

Michael J. White

Robert E. Turner Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Population Studies and Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Professor of Population Studies (Research) – Brown University

What are the main benefits of living in an ethnically diverse city?

It is very possible that living in an ethnically diverse city could promote some of the same benefits that have been identified with diversity in the workforce. Workforce diversity has been linked to productivity and innovation. Urban ethnic diversity can provide some of the demographic environment or the "social infrastructure" that could help sustain such benefits. Of course, there are no guarantees, and this urban ethnic diversity needs to be recognized and tapped by the public and the private sector alike.

What does it mean for residents when a city’s ethnic composition changes rapidly?

Rapid demographic change, including but not limited to shifts in ethnic composition, does introduce some potential for stress. One must be careful, however, not to project broad city-wide or region-wide shifts into some universal experience. Cities have been undergoing such changes for decades, and most shifts play out at a smaller geographic scale. How those changes are understood and treated by policy-makers becomes an important part of what this means for residents.