anitram said:
I don't know that it's the most diverse either, frankly.
Toronto is more diverse than any city in the US, including the NYC and this is per the United Nations. It is actually the most multicultural city in the world and nearly 50% of its population was not even born in Canada. There are others in Canada like Vancouver and Montreal where the level of diversity is like nothing I've seen in even the largest US cities. Plus, here you don't get the sense of ghettos like in the US - some ethnic groups do form areas like your usual Chinatown, etc but the ghetto segregation and mentality that's present in the US just doesn't exist here, not on those levels.
anecdotal evidence of one city vs. another probably isn't helpful here, since i've been to both Montreal and Toronto and i didn't notice any kind of increased diversity, especially when compared to a city like New York or Chicago or San Francisco.
anyway, Wikipedia says this:
[q]According to the 2005 CIA World Fact (an official statistics agency), America racial composition is:
White
81.7%, or 241 million (includes those who declared themselves as white-Hispanics; those of Middle Eastern and North African descent; and others who checked "Some other race".)
69%, or 204 million (excludes white-Hispanics, but includes Middle Easterners, North Africans, and others who checked "Some other race".)
Black or African American 12.9% or 36.4 million,
Asian 4.2% or 11.9 million,
American Indian 1.4% or 4.1 million,which includes those of mixed race or more than race in addition to Native Americans
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 0.2%
Two or more races 2.4%
The Census Bureau considers Hispanic to be any person with national origins in Latin America or Spain (ie. Spaniards, Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc.), and thus may be of any race.
The American population is therefore only around 69% White (206 million people)when the definition of white is a person of pure European Ancestry.
Hispanics of any race 14.1%, or 41.3 million.
By ethnicity, Hispanics comprise 14% of the American population, surpassing African Americans as America's largest de facto ethnic minority.
[/q]
i couldn't find a comparable listing for Canada, but it did have this to say:
[q]Ethnicity
Visible minorities
Note that Aboriginal peoples are not considered visible minorities.
Population Per cent of
population
Chinese 1,029,395 3.5%
Indo Canadian 917,075 3.1%
Black 662,210 2.2%
Filipino 308,575 1.0%
Latin American 216,975 0.7%
Southeast Asian 198,880 0.7%
Arab 194,680 0.7%
West Asian 109,285 0.4%
Korean 100,660 0.3%
Japanese 73,315 0.2%
Visible minority, n.i.e. 98,920 0.3%
Multiple visible minorities 73,875 0.2%
Total visible minority population 3,983,845 13.4%
Source: Statistics Canada, 2001 Census, 97F0010XCB2001002
[/q]
so, it's really not even close.
as for Australia ...
[q]Ethnic groups
Caucasian 92%, Asian 7%, Aboriginal and other 1% [/q]
and this is not at all to say anything negative about Australian or Canadian society. i find many things to admire about them, and have spent a fair amount of time in Canada, both in Toronto and Montreal, as well as the Toronto suburbs. however, i don't think either country yet has the diversity that you'll find in the US, and i also don't think that sweeping generalizations about ghettoization really hold up under scrutiny. it's very dangerous to generalize about 300m people.