How do you figure Toronto is more culturally diverse than LA? LA has large communities of people from essentially every part of the world. Maybe they're roughly on par?
LA is 40% immigrants because large immigrant populations are already established in LA, whereas Toronto was basically white until a few decades ago.
LA is roughly 48% Latino, 30% "white", 11% Asian, 10% Black, and 30% "other" generally referring to smaller ethnic groups or to multi-ethnic individuals. LA's minority population on an absolute basis is larger than the entire population of the Toronto Metro Area. We have every type of Asian, European, South and North American, African, and Pacific Islander there is. We have ethnic populations in LA that are the only settled populations of those groups outside of their home countries, such as Iranian Jews and Druze.
Toronto is 48% white, 9% Black, 1% Aboriginal, and the remainder is Asian. Not diverse by US standards, unless you're comparing yourself to Cleveland or Indianapolis, maybe.
"the only settled populations of those groups outside of their home countries, such as Iranian Jews and Druze."
Rural Alberta has Druze communities, let alone Toronto.
"and the remainder is Asian"
Not true, a significant portion of the "other" category in Toronto is Arab and African. Not to mention the fact that "Asian" itself is a highly diverse category.
"Toronto was basically white until a few decades ago"
Exactly. Toronto's hugely diverse population is quite young, meaning it is much less assimilated.
To me, 50% vs 40% isn't "far more culturally diverse". Especially when you consider that Los Angeles has more than 2x the number of people. And I can tell you that the experience of living in Los Angeles is insanely multicultural. It's like somebody took the globe and shrunk it down to fit inside of a single city. In the course of a 30 minute drive, you can pass through neighborhoods where the store front signage is alternately in Korean, Armenian, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, etc. I mean, there basically are no white people in the city core, outside of extremely affluent neighborhoods.
Pretty much exactly my experience in Toronto, but I never experienced that in my visits to LA. Perhaps Toronto is not "far more" diverse, but I still maintain that it is more diverse.
I imagine that in both cities it matters a great deal which suburbs you include in your census when measuring ethnic diversity so it's really hard to compare directly.