Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
even if foreign born populations in US cities are drastically under-counted by the cenusus bureau (and they probably are), i still believe that the numbers we do have are accurate enough on a relative basis to tell us which cities have more immigrants living within them and which cities have less.
we don't need rocket science level accuracy in the numbers to tell us that, on a relative basis, miami has a shit-load of immigration, chicago has a moderate level, and cleveland has very little.
|
Yeah, on a broad relative basis, we do know what cities seem to have more immigrants and those that do not. And we know that rustbelt cities obviously missed out on much foreign immigration from the 1960s thru the 1990s that many cities outside of the economically-declining region experienced.
But refugee population influx to the region, especially since the 1980s and surging in the late 90s up until a couple years ago basically, is significant. And
highly significant numbers of refugees have settled in smaller rustbelt cities. I'm most familiar with this in Pennsylvania, with Erie, Scranton, Lancaster, Harrisburg, and Reading receiving a lot of this influx... for instance, in my hometown, the city of Erie is only around 100k in total population now, but that includes 20% immigrants and refugees. These numbers are based on actual USCIS and state and local resettlement agency records... and not on "door knocker" census counts which put Erie's foreign-born percentage at only 5%... which is hilariously inaccurate since Erie had over 5,0000 Bhutanese refugees by 2015 alone.
And this is the case in a small city -- I have no idea the level of undercounting that occurs in a large metro area, but logic has me imagining that it's major.
The US Census is a total joke when it comes to accurately counting immigrants and refugees... and it will probably be even less accurate now that Trump has people even more fearful to report.
Also, something that should be noted is the nomenclature and how terms and corresponding numbers can be erroneously conflated to describe active immigration to various cities/regions.
Foreign born population is a really misleading descriptor to assess immigration to cities because a foreign-born resident of a city may have immigrated decades prior and have resided as a US citizen for many years.
For example, how do you know that Miami "has a shit-load of immigration"?