Comment by hunter23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hunter23 | Hacker News Reader

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The midwest is an underrated area of the US but unfortunately the lack of diversity makes it hard for me to live there. It's a hard area for certain cultures to live in.

edit: not sure why I'm downvoted as my wife lived in the midwest and it was hard for her to practice her culture. She has fond memories of the area but knows how unpractical it was for her parents. Her family had to make a monthly 1.5 hour drive into Chicago to find Indian groceries, she got picked incessantly for being the only Indian kid in school, and her parents couldn't eat out because there so few options with vegetarian food. It's just hard living in a place where so few people have a similar skin tone, religion, or culture as you which is why most Indians move out of the midwest. People make fun of the racism of the South, but I grew up in a diverse metro in the South and didn't have to deal with any of this since about 25% of my school was Asian. Obviously, Chicago and some of the other large metros are ok. I'm just pointing out that in all these threads there is this argument to "move somewhere else" but there are huge regions of the country many have to rule out because they are ethnic minorities.

As someone from Kansas, absolutely an issue. It's probably 90% white, there's no culture in Kansas City, just a bunch of hipsters with clear framed glasses. When I interned for Garmin a few years back, they had intern events to hype us up about living in Kansas City.

It's essentially a cultural wasteland, and tech jobs are few and far between. The startup scene there is a joke too, they suck up new college grads too stupid to realize they can work elsewhere and pay them below market.

There's plenty of culture in Kansas, just like everywhere else in the world. The problem is homogeneity of culture, not the lack of it.

Picking nits, but yes

Regarding diversity of thoughts (which is to me way more important than visible diversity):

What you really mean, is that the Bay area got the "good diversity" (rich democrats), while Kansas City got the "wrong diversity" (poor white republicans).

I think those two places are similar in that regards. They are both polarized, and are both not that diverse in term of actual ideas.

Now if you want visible diversity (whatever that means), sure the bay Area got more people from a different origin but they usually all think in exactly the same way.

Source: I lived 2 years in St Louis and 4 years in the bay area.

Edit: Forgot that I would be downvoted, since it seems to be politically incorrect to say that visible diversity (what everyone is focusing on) is different than thought diversity.

> What you really mean, is that the Bay area got the "good diversity" (rich democrats)

If you look outside the wealthiest parts of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, you'll find that the Bay Area is full of working and middle class Democrats, and if you focus on it's wealthiest towns, you will also find concentrations of rich Republicans (Atherton, Blackhawk, Danville, etc).

As some one who grew up in semi-rural Appalachia, part of the reason I live in SF today is due to how badly I don’t fit in culturally in places like the Midwest. Being surrounded by those with differing opinions doesn’t bother me too much, so that’s not a problem, but the culture in these areas tends to be quite hostile to anybody going against the grain and that’s not something I care to deal with.

On a slightly different note, having lived in places where the ocean is easily visible for almost a decade now I now find thoroughly landlocked places kinda depressing in a way that I can’t explain. I don’t even visit beaches all that often but there’s something uplifting about being able to look at an ocean filled vista.

>but the culture in these areas tends to be quite hostile to anybody going against the grain and that’s not something I care to deal with

As someone who has lived in both the Midwest and in a liberal coastal city, I almost thought you were complaining about SF being less tolerant. My experience was that while the Midwest did not have a greater diversity of opinions, they did have greater tolerance of the diversity. The obvious example (mentioned by many on HN): The bias I've seen against Republican voters (even before Trump) here. Whereas in the Midwest, I did not see any such disdain towards voters of either party.

I suspect, though, that the experience will vary depending on the city.

It definitely depends on the city/town. In the small town I grew up in, you were welcome as long as you were baptist (or at least some Christian denomination) and held fairly stereotypical conservative beliefs. Publicly deviate from that and all bets are off.

I could imagine larger population centers in the area not suffering the issue as badly, but I’ve never lived in midwestern city so I have no experience to corroborate that with.

unfortunately the lack of diversity makes it hard for me to live there

You don't think non-whites live in Detroit/Chicago?

I'd argue SF isn't that diverse, especially some neighborhoods. It's mostly rich whites and asians. African Americans got chased out long ago or forced into Bayview.

>I'd argue SF isn't that diverse, especially some neighborhoods. It's mostly rich whites and asians. African Americans got chased out long ago or forced into Bayview.

This is a bit more accurate...

http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Western_Addition:_A_B...

They don't live in the neighborhoods that the HN crowd finds attractive.

Asians are minorities. Also, Asian subcultures are extremely diverse - East Asian, South East Asian, South Asian, etc. You don't need every single minority involved to be called diverse.

This is more true than most people realize. I grew up in the midwest in a predominantly white area. We had an Indian classmate, and people called him the "black kid". I wish I was joking.

One way to decrease fear of the others is proximity and familiarity, eventually you stop being others.

Huge disclaimer: This is probably easy for me to say, as I am about as "all american" looking as they come

It is true, I live in one of those cities (Omaha) at a tech startup, it's been tiring these last 4 years sitting next to people who openly talk and try to 'educate' peers about how immigrants kill people, vaccines cause cancer, and climate change is made up from dodgy scientist readings.

Education could be a lot better here.

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