Austin, TX

During a visit to Austin, I have come to realize one of the reasons I like the town.

Houston can legitimately claim to be the most ethnically diverse city in the U.S. But there is a paucity of other kinds of diversity in my city. In any part of town, eating out mostly is a matter of choosing among the same set of chain restaurants that exist in every other part of town. Housing subdivisions tend to a stultifying sameness. The businesses of the city are dominated by the fossil fuel sector.

Austin, by contrast, positively revels in diversity. This "blueberry in the tomato soup of Texas" has more non-chain restaurants than most cities. There are a great many people with extremely developed beards, or extensive tattooing, or electrically colored hair, or unconventional dietary preferences, or novel spirituality -- or not -- all coexisting to "keep Austin weird". It feels as if there is maybe one unique craft brewery or winery per thousand inhabitants. Businesses include high tech, low tech, no tech, etc., but no one sector dominating.

There are more different kinds of diversity than in most places I have seen. You could say that Austin prizes diverse diversity.