u/FinancialChain6275

I found this very fascinating but there are multiple US cities that have the largest populations of a nationality outside of their home country. Just note that this is referring to foreign born citizens, not people born in America of familiar descent. I myself grew up in the UK and live in Chicago now, so forgive me if I mix some things up. The cities and the countries include...

The Global Cities:

New York City - Chinese, Dominican, Puerto Rican

Some sources report that NYC also has the highest population of Jewish individuals in the world outside of Israel, as well as the highest Albanian population outside of Albania, although results for that aren't conclusive.

Los Angeles - Armenian, Salvadoran, Iranian, Belizean

Some sources report that LA also has the largest population of Saudis outside Saudi Arabia, and while it does not have the largest Korean population outside of Korea, it has the largest Korean population in the United States.

Chicago - Serbian, Lithuanian, Polish (metro area).

Also has the largest Palestinian population in the United States. Some sources report that Chicago also has the largest Assyrian population outside the Assyrian homeland (parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran) as well. Some claim that Chicago and another city called St. Louis have a near identical Bosnian population, making us the largest population of Bosniaks outside of Bosnia. Some sources also indicate that Chicago metro has the largest Croatian population outside of Croatia.

As far as I can see, only 3 US cities have 3 or more confirmed instances in which they have the largest population from a country outside of that country itself, showcasing exception internationalism.

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Miami - Cuban, Nicaraguan

South Florida also has the largest Haitian population in the US, but not in the world outside of Haiti. Miami also has the largest Venezuelan population in the US but not in the world outside of Venezuela.

Washington DC - Ethiopian

This place has pretty architecture and, as a Brit, feels the most American to me of any American cities. I mean there's the White House, obviously. I know some Americans think this feels European due to the height restriction, but when I think of America, this comes to mind.

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Honorable Mentions:

Minneapolis/St Paul - Somali, Hmong

Surprising. I know of this place because of protests in the news as well as a great youtuber

Dearborn/Detroit - Arab

I have heard of Detroit, but what is Dearborn

Cleveland - Slovenian

I know that Kid Cudi is from here.

Were any of these surprising to you? And if you have any more valuable info I would love hear it! Doesn't have to just be US cities either.

I currently live in Chicago. I absolutely love the city in many ways. It's a amazing, beautiful international city. There are about 600,000 other immigrants who live in this city, including many Londoners so I feel a sense of community. That being said a near constant issue in Chicago is that drivers rarely stop for pedestrians and are very hostile in general.

I have had so many close calls in which I was going to use a zebra crossing (crosswalk) and drivers intentionally have sped up, honked at me, and even yelled/cussed at me to "get out of the fucking street". Oftentimes the zebra crossing had a sign saying it is a state law to stop for pedestrians. I have even at times been in the middle of zebra crossings and have had drivers from both sides continue going, leaving me trapped in the middle of the street with about a foot of space on either side. Another time I was in the zebra crossing and a driver stopped for me and made eye contact with me, only to speed up as I began to step in front of their vehicle, and drove off laughing at me! Not to mention on Chicago highways it is relatively normal for traffic to be going 90-100MPH, with people flying all over the place with no turn signals, cutting traffic on the hard shoulder, and more.

Another thing that is very noticable in Chicago is that drivers often *intentionally* speed up on the highway to block you from merging. It happens all the time. If you put on your turn signal to merge, they rarely will let you in but instead will speed up and block you. I've had to drive onto the hard shoulder multiple times over this. All of this stuff I described above is stuff I even frequently see taxi's doing with tourists inside!

Anytime I have been to Seattle and driven there I have noticed that drivers are generally slower, much more courteous and much more cautious. As a pedestrian in Seattle, most times that I got close to a crosswalk, cars came to a full stop just to let me cross. Brilliant! In Chicago I have frequently seen times where cars will go to do a left turn on green, and pedestrians (many of which appear to be tourists given how scared they get and the fact that they often start running away) will be crossing and the cars will all start to lay on their horns at the pedestrians trying to intimidate them so they speed up and get out of the way. In Seattle I didn't hear anyone using their horn, people generally used their turn signal most of the time, and I just felt safer. I know everyone has different experiences and there is always people who have gotten quite unlucky that will comment. But the main thing is, I felt safer in Seattle as a driver and a pedestrian. So thank you.

Why do drivers here generally not stop for pedestrians and do you think there is anything the city can do to remedy this? It seems the majority of drivers here do not stop for pedestrians, and I have had many close calls where I have been in a zebra crossing legally and drivers will keep going. I have even had drivers honk at me for using the crossing and one time one even yelled and swore at me for using one that had a sign saying legally they need to stop for pedestrians. One time one stopped for me and the person behind them swerved around them and almost hit me and then honked at me.

Unfortunately, a lot of the time when I express frustration over this, instead of being understanding people just try to tell me that it is worse somewhere else and to basically ignore it instead of admitting that it is still an issue that should be worked on. It's so frustrating. At the very least some sense of responsibility and understanding would be nice rather than deflection or the comparison game. Or at least admitting that it still is not as good as it should be.

I have been to many other cities all over including Singapore, Miami, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Rome and countless others and have never had this issue nearly as much as I have here in Chicago. In fact, when I visited Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles, I was shocked by how many drivers came to a halt just because they seemingly thought I would cross. But here I find that just does not usually happen. And I'm not saying I haven't seen any bad behavior to pedestrians in other cities. I'm saying I don't see it with nearly the amount of consistency that I see here.

EDIT: Hello, all. I accidentally mixed up the terms immigrant and expat. That was not intentional and what I meant to say was immigrant. I will be sure to keep this in mind going forward so that that does not happen again. I apologize for that, and I hope we can move on from that.

I'm from the UK originally (London, specifically). I know that Chicago has almost 600,000 foreign born residents in the city, itself, and I find that I can feel that presence quite strongly compared to most US cities that I have frequented. I've had no struggles meeting a very diverse array of people from all over the world here, and have many mates here from all over. Some of which are also from the UK, Brazil, Venezuela, South Korea, Nigeria, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Turkey, for reference.

So, expats, where are you from and are you alright?

So I used the Kearney Index to find the top 10 global cities in the world. And in order, the most searched cities online, over the past 20 years, out of those are 1. NYC 2. London 3. Paris 4. Chicago 5. Singapore 6. Hong Kong 7. Los Angeles 8. Tokyo 9. Shanghai 10. Beijing. I find this fascinating because it shows which of these global cities have the most interest shown towards them recently. For fun, I also looked up cities such as San Francisco, Miami, and Dubai and those would be around the middle after Los Angeles and before Tokyo.