[fearingreprisal]

> From the perspective of someone who is not living in a large city I think you are primarily talking about the properties of large cities, not about assimilation in general...

No, I am talking about assimilation. I'm only concerned with the end product of the immigration. I'm not opposed to large-scale urban multiculturalism on some spiritual basis, I'm opposed to it because I don't believe it produces an actual desirable outcome. It sounds like you've just spoken to my point: That in large cities immigrant populations do not assimilate to the host culture because of the availability of said enclaves. If you're the one immigrant in a village of 100, you may need to make a bigger effort to assimilate into the host community. This is true. Your post seems to agree with me on the point that many immigrants favour large cities because there is less obligation to integrate with the host culture.

> However, what you seem to fail to grasp is that what you are seeing isn't actually the native culture of these people...

I fail to see the significance of this. I have my own doubts as to its accuracy. True or not, I still don't see the relevance. One possible way of interpreting your post would be that this is their attempt at assimilating into the host culture. If immigrant populations in large cities forming racial enclaves and ghettos that exclude the host culture is the best possible outcome, then why are we obliged to believe this multicultural experiment is a good thing?

FYI: I am an immigrant myself, having come to this country as a child.

[dang]

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create HN accounts to do that with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[rewq4321]

> If immigrant populations in large cities forming racial enclaves and ghettos

This is a very... loaded way of talking about cultural precincts.

I've lived in the most multi-cultural city in Australia, and in one of the least, and I much prefer the diversity of the former. I love having a Chinatown that has legitimately maintained aspects of Chinese culture, and other Asian cultures, for example. The Chinatown in my previous city was essentially a cardboard prop in comparison.

In general, I think you may be confused. It seems that what you really care about is collective ethics and social contracts, and yet what you seem to be talking about is this vague idea of "assimilation". I find it hard to believe that you really want a perfectly homogeneous culture, but if you do, fair enough. I think most disagree with you - cities that have a bunch of legit cultural precincts are generally more interesting to me. I don't know how to say it exactly, but to me a monoculture city feels a little "boring" in comparison. This is, of course, just opinion.

If you happen to think that immigrants are statistically more associated with crime, then, in general, you're mistaken[0]. Foreign-born residents are generally underrepresented in prison populations, and studies I've read suggest that it takes around 3 generations for crime rates of immigrants to reach that of the native population.

[0] "Most studies in the U.S. have found lower crime rates among immigrants than among non-immigrants, and that higher concentrations of immigrants are associated with lower crime rates. For men between the ages of 18 and 39, the demographic with the highest propensity for crime, the incarceration rate for immigrants is one-fourth that of native-born Americans." Data with citations on more countries here --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime