What is the least "WASP" city in the United States?

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I would say Philadelphia feels more generic American (owing to the larger German population, but far fewer English, Scottish, and Scandinavians/Nordics) than Boston, but also less WASPy (more Polish, Jewish).

Everyone is taking this definition way too literally.

The Western Suburbs of Philadelphia are super leafy and rich (Main Line, Southern Chester County). Dotted with stone or masonry homes in canopied neighborhoods full of top notch public and private schools (and colleges). And it's not an errant random town or two, but a contiguous string of towns that go on for miles virtually uninterrupted. I don't care who lives there. It's WASPY. The homes are stone and brick. The lots rather large. Many townships in the area have preserved 25+% of their land as green space. There are still townships with unpaved roads and zoning for horses on property within 45 minutes of Center City Philadelphia. The over-arching style is understated. You rarely see flashy homes (even when they are huge) with gaudy materials. Everything, even new...is stone, clapboard, and brick. No vinyl. No stucco. If you saw more than a handful of homes on the Main Line out of tens of thousands with a stone or marble floors and gaudy crystal chandeliers and silver fixtures you'd color me surprised. It's just considered tacky and almost no one does it.

There are a handful of regions in the country that match the aesthetic. West Chester NY and Fairfield County CT. The Western Suburbs of Boston. Parts of Montgomery County MD. Maybe parts of Lake County IL.

And that's it. Pretty much end of story.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

There’s no mistaking the Jewish look. You can dress them in sweater vests and khakis, and yet, no one will be fooled.

You don't see anything borderline antisemitic about you posting the most stereotypical looking Jewish people - repeatedly - and then saying "of course you can tell Jewish people by their looks!"

What if I posted tons of pictures of black people with super-dark skin, thick lips, and big asses?

I mean, yeah, there is a stereotypical "Jewish look" which is more common among Jews. But some non-Jews look like like Jews (Jason Biggs, Seth Meyers, Weird Al Yankovic, etc.) and lots of Jews don't look particularly Jewish (looking at "full-blood" only who I haven't said before, there's Paul Rudd, Fred Savage, Natasha Lyonne, etc). Though it's admittedly getting pretty hard to find younger full-blooded Jews who are celebrities because of the rate of intermarriage (most Jewish actors born after 1970 have one gentile parent).

[Docere]

Can we get a ban on Keynes posting about anything relating to Jews?

[JMKeynes]

Not really. Harvey Weinstein and Larry David look like Jews. If you said that Conan O’Brien looks Irish, I don’t think that the O’Connors of the world would through a fit.

I do see a lot of bigotry in this thread though.

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by Docere

Can we get a ban on Keynes posting about anything relating to Jews?

Can we get a ban on you with your constant condescending references to “working class Catholics”? Your prejudice is unmistakable and then you act like a victim.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Not really. Harvey Weinstein and Larry David look like Jews. If you said that Conan O’Brien looks Irish, I don’t think that the O’Connors of the world would through a fit.

I do see a lot of bigotry in this thread though.

There's a difference between saying someone "looks Jewish" and claiming that Jews cannot be mistaken for anything else.

Jewish is not a race. Even if we consider the Ashkenazim alone (who are an ethnic group) as was noted they are a hybrid population between the ancient Hebrews and Southern Europeans - leavened by about 15% eastern European DNA. It shouldn't be surprising that people from related groups can look like them - and they can look like related groups.

[Docere]

What townships does the Main Line include?

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, there are people who talk like Fran Drescher, but not like her character in the Nanny. That was a cartoonish exaggeration, way beyond the working class white ethnic New Yawk accent.

She definitely played it up for the character, but in real life she had the quintessential Queens/Long Island nasally accent. It's not nearly as thick nowadays.

• Video Link

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Maybe I'm looking at the numbers wrong, but those percentages are the overall number of people who - among those who identify as being that ethnicity - identify as that alone right? So 22.5% of people in Boston with some English ancestry identify as English alone.

Yes, that's correct. English/Scottish (plus "American") makes English the second most predominant ancestry in Boston at around 10%, so the map you posted isn't far off.

Interestingly, 25% of the people in Greater Los Angeles who claim English ancestry only report English. There's a huge "American" population as well. No question in my mind that LA's more English than German.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Jews in NY, LA, and Boca have a very unique accent. Take Josh Atlman on Selling LA, for example. No one will confuse him with someone named Smith in any respect, including his accent.

He was on Selling LA too? Or are you thinking Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles? Anyway, that douche is from Boston.

Speaking of real estate reality TV shows, I was a fan of Selling NY. Most of the brokers featured were, as you might imagine, Jewish. Here's one of them. There's quite a range of Jewish phenotypes.


https://www.bhsusa.com/real-estate-agent/susan-silverman

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Everyone is taking this definition way too literally.

Agreed. WASP is more a cultural identifier these days; hence why I also mentioned Ivy League universities and elite boarding schools.

It's just fascinating how Boston is so much more English than NYC, Philly, and Chicago — the other major "white ethnic" metros. Boston / New England culture emphasizes inconspicuous wealth (old money), celebrates its colonial-era history, and is full of bucolic suburbs with educated, working professionals (a lot of whom are Irish Catholic). Vacationing in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket... I can't think of anything more WASPy than that.

It's way, way more preppy than the grittier Mid-Atlantic and the more "meat and potatoes" Chicago. And it's also, quite literally, significantly more Anglo-Saxon.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Agreed. WASP is more a cultural identifier these days; hence why I also mentioned Ivy League universities and elite boarding schools.

It's just fascinating how Boston is so much more English than NYC, Philly, and Chicago — the other major "white ethnic" metros. Boston / New England culture emphasizes inconspicuous wealth (old money), celebrates its colonial-era history, and is full of bucolic suburbs with educated, working professionals (a lot of whom are Irish Catholic). Vacationing in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket... I can't think of anything more WASPy than that.

It's way, way more preppy than the grittier Mid-Atlantic and the more "meat and potatoes" Chicago. And it's also, quite literally, significantly more Anglo-Saxon.

Not sure about this. Chicago is pretty preppy too. North Shore and the western suburbs are classic eastern U.S. suburbia, very preppy and understated. Gold Coast/Lincoln Park are very preppy and (culturally) WASP.

Philly was one of the top three U.S. cities during peak WASPdom, and it shows. The Main Line covers a larger geography than Boston equivalents and is, if anything, even more classically Eastern establishment. Philly is grittier than Boston now, but not pre-1970.

I don't see any major cultural differences between, say, Westchester or Fairfield, and the wealthy suburbs of Boston. They're all Eastern establishment/understated/culturally anti-bling. MV/Nantucket are as New Yorky as they are Boston-oriented. Hamptons are more showy, but that's a very recent thing. Most of the East End of LI is largely indistinguishable from the quiet wealth of MV.

[dc_denizen]

Fairfield is far more flashy / chintzy , with big cardboard houses and higher end cars driven by trophy wives, underwhelming small town centers , and very little preserved green space . It also lacks educational institutions to support more high end culture . The equivalents to the Main line / Brookline areas in New York are on north shore Long Island, westchester and maybe parts of nj. Not coincidentally the Jewish population is low , while there are more Italians

Putnam ave in Greenwich is an architectural and aesthetic joke compared to Montgomery ave on the mainline

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Docere

What townships does the Main Line include?

It's typically not considered to be the townships in their entirety, but communities within the townships. That said, it includes:

Lower Marion Township (Montgomery)
Narberth Boro (Montgomery)
Haverford Township (Delaware)
Radnor Township (Delaware)
Tredyffrin Township (Chester)
Willistown Township (Chester)

The Chester areas were originally not considered part of the Main Line/Old Money neighborhoods, but added later.

Essentially look along the rail line which starts at Marion Station in Philly and travels out to Paoli. That's the core of the Main Line. Though even Paoli really just looks like suburban sprawl. Wayne is the last area that actually looks like a railroad suburb.

Note that sections of the core of the Main Line actually aren't super high income. Narberth was historically more of a middle-class town (though it's gentrified) there's a poor side of Ardmore (where the "help" lived) filled with attached housing, and there's several different private universities out there (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Villanova) which skew the income down a bit due to student housing. The real wealth is a bit out of the town centers.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Interestingly, 25% of the people in Greater Los Angeles who claim English ancestry only report English. There's a huge "American" population as well. No question in my mind that LA's more English than German.

There are tons of Mormons in Southern California (particularly in Orange County) which probably accounts for most of this.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Fairfield is far more flashy / chintzy , with big cardboard houses and higher end cars driven by trophy wives, underwhelming small town centers , and very little preserved green space . It also lacks educational institutions to support more high end culture . The equivalents to the Main line / Brookline areas in New York are on north shore Long Island, westchester and maybe parts of nj. Not coincidentally the Jewish population is low , while there are more Italians

Putnam ave in Greenwich is an architectural and aesthetic joke compared to Montgomery ave on the mainline

Say what? Greenwich is the classic establishment U.S. suburb. There's nothing in the Main Line like downtown Greenwich. Lacks educational institutions? Like half the elite prep schools in the U.S.? And Yale?

Also, there's obviously a large Jewish population in all these areas, in both NY and Boston areas (and Philly, for that matter). Traditional favored quarters, even if historically WASPy, almost always have the secular Jewish elites of the present. Rich people live together nowadays.

[eschaton]

Yeah, I grew up in Fairfield County, albeit a more middle-class town (Trumbull). There were tons of Jews who went to public school with me. Admittedly since I was in the "nerd" social grouping they were probably more heavily represented in my overall social network than the school as a whole, but still, close to half of my extended social network seemed to be Jewish.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Note that sections of the core of the Main Line actually aren't super high income. Narberth was historically more of a middle-class town (though it's gentrified) there's a poor side of Ardmore (where the "help" lived) filled with attached housing, and there's several different private universities out there (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Villanova) which skew the income down a bit due to student housing. The real wealth is a bit out of the town centers.

A lot of the really old Eastern establishment towns have neighborhoods for the "help" within walking distance of the estate neighborhoods.

You see this in Gold Coast of LI, Greenwich, Main Line, etc. Greenwich even has sizable housing projects.

[Steely Dan]

It's is a little funny to me how many of you use the word "WASP" very differently than I do.

I went to a prestigious northshore catholic "college prep" high school and it was as preppy as you would imagine any wealthy college prep school to be, but the "WASP" label was not a term that anyone in my school would've identified with. We were overtly Catholic, and thus not ""WASP" by definition.

[Crawford]

I don't think WASP is really a commonly used term in the Midwest, like in the Northeast. Not sure I even heard it growing up. But it doesn't mean places like Glencoe, Kenilworth and Hinsdale don't share characteristics with their Eastern equivalents.

Eastern seaboard, for whatever reason, is really into ethnic identification. I was just a white guy in Michigan.