Census: McAllen most multilingual city in U.S. Read Comments
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 4:47 p.m.

Read more: Local, Census, Multilingual, Mcallen, Hidalgo County, Rio Grande Valley, Texas

CBS News is reporting that McAllen is the most multilingual city in the United States, according to the latest census data.

The Census Bureau Tuesday released its American Community Survey results, which charts a range of social, economic and housing data in U.S. metropolitan areas.

CBS reported that the running survey, which is different from the traditional once-a-decade census, tracks three years worth of data.

The latest figures cover 2006 to 2008.

Among the findings:

• McAllen, Texas has the highest percentage of people age 5 and older who speak a language other than English at home  - 84.2 percent while Charleston, West Virginia has the lowest - 1.8 percent.

El Paso, Texas is the only other metro area with more than three-quarters of its population speaking another language.

• The Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area ranks first in foreign-born citizens with 36.9 percent. Altoona, Pa., ranks last with just 0.9 percent.

Only two other areas top 30 percent - San Jose, Calif., and Los Angeles.

• San Jose, Calif., boasts the highest median home values - $739,700 - while Odessa, Texas ranks last with $68,200. California dominates the country in this category.

While San Jose is the only metro area to top the $700,000 median value, the six others that exceed $600,000 - Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Salinas, Napa, Santa Barbara and Oxnard - are all in the Sunshine State.

• Provo-Orem, Utah and Laredo, Texas share the top spot for largest average household with 3.5 people. Ocean City, N.J., ranks last with 2.0 people per household.

• New Yorkers have the longest commute to work, checking in at 34.5 minutes, followed closely by Washington, D.C., at 33.2 minutes.

Residents in Grand Forks, N.D., have the shortest commute and live in the only metro area with an average commute time under 15 minutes.

Click here to view the full report 

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4 Comments on this Story
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Border Town

Posted by J V, Texas - Monday, November 02, 2009 at 9:40 a.m.

El Paso : Cuidad Jaurez

McAllen : Reynosa

Same difference :(

Definition of multilingual

Posted by Oatka ., El Paso - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Multilingual:
1. (Linguistics) able to speak MORE THAN TWO languages
2. (Linguistics) written or expressed in MORE THAN TWO languages (Collins English Dictionary)

Bilingual:
1. (Linguistics) able to speak two languages
2. (Linguistics) written or expressed in two languages

The article sounded like it was glorifying a ployglot-language society. Sub-Sahara Africa comes to mind and look what a mess that place is.

Border town historically have been bi-lingual, so why hide behind this "multi" business? Sloppy reporting or an agenda?

The authors of this article now ought to do a companion piece and see if 84.2% Reynosa's residents are bilingual, let alone "multi". That would go for any Mexican town along the border as well.

Multilingual

Posted by J V, Texas - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 9:56 a.m.

The use of two or more languages by speaker's' or community.

ex: English Or Spanish, English or Chinese and so on.

Please define "multilingual"

Posted by Oatka .., Texas - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 6:57 p.m.

IMO, "multilingual" is just a code word for "Mexican."

If 84.2 percent of a city's residents all speak the same language at home—and trust me, all those non-English-speakers in McAllen aren't conversing in French, German, Russian, Korean or Chinese, then that city isn't multilingual at all.

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