Kent, Federal Way, Renton crack top 20 in list of nation’s most culturally diverse cities

(The Center Square) – Nine Washington state cities made personal finance website WalletHub’s list of “2022’s Most & Least Ethnically Diverse Cities in America,” with three cracking the top 20.

In a report released on Wednesday, WalletHub compared 501 of the largest cities in the country across three key indicators of ethnic diversity: ethnicity and race, language, and birthplace.

“The U.S. today is a melting pot of cultures, thanks to increasing ethnic and racial diversification,” the report stated. “If the trend continues, America will be more colorful than ever by 2045, at which point no single ethnic group will constitute the majority in the U.S. for the first time.”

WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez spoke to the noteworthy showing of Evergreen State cities on the list.

“Three Washington cities made the top 20, which is impressive considering the larger sample size of this report,” she said. “All three are small cities – Kent at 7, Federal Way at 12, and Renton at 16.”

Gonzalez went on to note, “All scored the highest in the Ethnoracial Diversity category, second highest in Linguistic Diversity and average in Birthplace Diversity. That being said, Washington in general has higher Birthplace Diversity than most states, with about 15% of its population having been born in a foreign country.”

The six other Washington cites on the list: Bellevue (No. 37), Everett (No. 100), Yakima (No. 116), Seattle (No. 128), Tacoma (No. 135), and Spokane (No. 393).

The inclusion of nine Washington cities on WalletHub’s list is in line with a jump in the state’s diversity index from 45.4% in 2010 to 55.9% in 2020, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The diversity index is the probability that if two people are picked at random, they will be from two different races or ethnicities. It’s a metric used by the Census Bureau to track and compare a region’s racial and ethnic diversity between official counts of the population.

The 10 most culturally diverse cities in America, according to WalletHub:

1. Jersey City, New Jersey

2. Germantown, Maryland

3. Gaithersburg, Maryland

4. Silver Springs, Maryland

5. Spring Valley, Nevada

6. New York, New York

7. Kent, Washington

8. San Jose, California

9. Oakland, California

10. Rockville, Maryland

The 10 least culturally diverse cities in America, according to WalletHub:

501. Parkersburg, West Virginia

500. Clarksburg, West Virginia

499. Hialeah, Florida

498. Laredo, Texas

497. Wheeling, West Virginia

496. Rutland, Vermont

495. Watertown, South Dakota

494. Barre, Vermont

493. Butte-Silver Bow, Montana

492. Laconia, New Hampshire

Disclaimer: This content is distributed by The Center Square