Quote:
Originally Posted by Capsicum
One thing I've regularly wondered about -- why is the US so good at resettling refugees in rural/small town areas, compared to Canada. Like the Somalis and Hmong in Minneapolis, but tons of other examples too. You'll find of cases all over, from Seattle to Houston, from the Midwest to the South.
In Canada, the big issue is overcrowding immigrants and newcomers into the same expensive cities, and even when immigrants are settled into small towns, they leave and head for Toronto or Vancouver.
But in the US, it seems like this is less of a problem. Burmese, or Eritrean, Cambodian or Hmong refugees deciding to pack up and head to New York or LA or Chicago isn't as heavily talked about, but refugees in, say, Nova Scotia or somewhere, packing up and moving to the GTA is.
Ironically, the US seems to have more mobility among its domestic-born population than Canada (more people move and work between states than between provinces), yet refugee communities are really good at staying put and growing a local community so that kids and grandkids of small town 70s-era refugees are still around growing the community, not packed up and left for the nearest big metro.
|
There are a number of reasons why the US Government settles Refugees in rural/small towns to larger metros. Often times they try to settle them in places that the US Government and the organizations (usually Religious) that they approve funding for in places that they believe would have the least negative impact (e.g., lower cost of living, lower crime, etc.) on their lives and provide adequate opportunities for them to easily adjust to American Society.
Places like Boise, Idaho (e.g., Bosnia, Congo, Uzbekistan, etc.), Des Moines, Iowa (e.g., Burma, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Togo, Congo, Liberia, Eritrea, Burundi, Syria, etc.), Lincoln, Nebraska (e.g., Iraq, Burma, Sudan) to Fargo, North Dakota (e.g., Somalia, Iraq, Congo, Sudan, Liberia, etc.) also receive a lot of refugees from all over the globe relative to their size/per capita.