Corry Joe Biddle knows to travel to the south side of Milwaukee for the best empanadas and to the north part of town when she's craving soul food. She's dined at Indian, Ethiopian and Cuban restaurants within the span of one week and sometimes rides the streetcar along its 2.1-mile path through the city simply to see her hometown from different perspectives.

"The sweets I've tasted, the people I've met and the feathers and fabrics I've touched – there are so many different kinds of people here," says Biddle, executive director of talent development, vice president of community engagement and member of the diversity committee in the city's chamber of commerce.

"Everywhere you go in Milwaukee, there's an opportunity to meet someone different than you."

And that opportunity has only increased over the past decade or so in Milwaukee and many other U.S. cities.

Nearly 70% of the country's largest cities are more racially diverse than they were in 2010, according to a U.S. News analysis of the most recently released population estimates data from the U.S. Census Bureau – a trend that experts expect to continue.

"The U.S. is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, and those patterns tend to be magnified in cities," says Mark Mather, a demographer with the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau.

U.S. News used a diversity index developed in 1991 by Philip Meyer of the University of North Carolina and Shawn McIntosh of USA Today to calculate a diversity score for U.S. cities with a population of 300,000 or more. The USA Today diversity index measures how likely it is that two people chosen at random would be different from one another, using the share that six racial and ethnic groups – white, black, Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic – account for in the total population. People of Hispanic ethnicity can be of any race, according to federal standards, but this overlap among groups is captured in the analysis.

U.S. News calculated cities' diversity index for 2018 using population estimates from the American Community Survey and for 2010 using data from the decennial census. Cities were defined by their legal, incorporated limits for consistency.

Mapping Diversity: A visual look at the U.S. News data from Esri, a location intelligence company.

A Growth in Urban Diversity

Of the 66 cities with a population of 300,000 or more in 2018, about 70% – 46 cities – had a higher diversity index score in 2018 than in 2010.

Some of the largest diversity gains happened in cities that started with some of the lowest diversity scores, including Colorado Springs, Colorado, which was 83% white in 2010 and Detroit, which was 85% black that year.

Detroit saw the biggest gain in diversity, due in part to a growing white population. Between 2010 and 2018, the probability that two people chosen at random would be different than one another in the Motor City grew by 21%.

Two Ohio cities – Cleveland and Columbus – also top the list for largest increases in diversity. Along with Detroit and many other Midwest cities, both saw significant gains in their Asian population. Between 2010 and 2018, the Asian population in many Midwestern cities grew more than double the average pace for large cities, including by as much as 87% in Indianapolis, 74% in Columbus and 57% in Cleveland.

In 2010, Biddle's home town of Milwaukee was one of just five large U.S. cities in which no racial or ethnic group accounted for more than 50% of the population, a number that has doubled as of 2018 with new additions including San Francisco, New York and Washington.

Traditional immigrant gateways on both coasts, including New York and Los Angeles, rank among the top 10 most diverse large cities. California cities consistently rank as the most diverse in the country, with Stockton, Oakland and Sacramento taking the top three spots in 2018.

How Urban Demographics Are Shifting

There are three general ways the population of a place can change, according to experts: new international migration, domestic movement between places, and natural change through births and deaths. While international migration takes the spotlight on the political stage, experts agree that natural change is the most prominent factor, especially in cities.

But in many ways the factors are intertwined.

For example, the number of immigrants from Europe has declined in recent decades while immigration from Asia and Latin America has grown exponentially, contributing to a growing share of Hispanics – and Asians, to a lesser extent – in younger generations, experts say. Cities tend to have a younger age structure, in which births typically outnumber deaths, driving what Mather calls "population momentum."

"There is a rapid increase in diversity among younger people and children. That is really what's driving this increase in racial ethnic diversity in large cities," he says.

Collectively, the 66 largest cities gained about 4 million people between 2010 and 2018, growing about 8% overall. In the same time period, the Asian population in those cities grew 20% and the Hispanic population grew 12%.

The black population in cities grew much more slowly – just 2% between 2010 and 2018.

Some western cities saw their black population increase significantly, including Mesa, Arizona, with a 66% jump. But 18 cities – many in the Midwest, including Cleveland, St. Louis and Chicago – lost more black residents than they gained.

Cities in the Midwest as well as the Northeast are losing black residents to the suburbs, enough that the "black suburbanization movement" could be considered a national trend, according to William Frey, a leading demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The aging baby boomer generation, which is about three-quarters white, is also moving away from cities, Frey says, a key trend that lends itself to increased diversity in cities.

"America's white population is aging and growing slowly," he says. "They're taking up a smaller share of the population in cities, moving into cities or moving at all."

The number of white residents in the 66 largest cities grew about 12% between 2010 and 2018. (U.S. News' analysis included Hispanic whites in this category; the number of non-Hispanic whites grew much more slowly, at just 3.5%, according to census data.) Yet, in more than half of those cities, white residents accounted for a smaller share of total residents in 2018 than they did in 2010.

In fact, 65% of cities that became more diverse between 2010 and 2018 saw a decline in the share of whites in their population. Honolulu, for example, lost nearly 4% of its white population and ranks sixth for growth in diversity.

But the share of white residents increased in 85% of cities that became less diverse. The white population grew the most in Dallas – 38% between 2010 and 2018 – contributing to its spot among the 10 cities that saw the largest decrease in diversity in the same time period.

Diversity, but Not Displacement

With racial minorities accounting for nearly half of millennials, experts say that cities capable of offering younger generations jobs and affordability can expect to attract a more racially diverse population than they've seen before.

But as urban cores become more diverse, it's critical that local leaders take measures to ensure these opportunities are available to city residents of all races and ethnicities, experts say.

That starts with a foundation of affordable housing in stable neighborhoods and prioritizing progressive demographic change instead of turnover, says Tim Thomas, an urban sociologist and fellow at the University of Washington.

"Diversity is good, but displacement is not," he says. "For it to be a good thing, we need a lot of progressive policy that gives all people the ability to compete at the same level."

Biddle agrees. She considered moving to Atlanta, where she thought there might be more opportunities for a woman of color, but stayed in Milwaukee because she landed a "great internship that turned into a great job" and now works to create more opportunities like hers for the city's young people.

"White, black, brown, yellow – millennials and Gen Z are really expecting that diversity in their city," she says. "Any cool city can attract top talent, but they won't stay unless there's that integration."