Only in some areas. I grew up in one of those flyover states, according to wikipedia the demographics of my town were 97% white while I was a teenager (~94% white now).

I much prefer being in more diverse areas, but I don't think where I grew up was somehow bad or wrong. It is a very middle class place, so it's not like the minorities were being pushed out, there just weren't many non-white people that wanted/want to live there! ...but to be fair, a lot of white people don't want to live there either, it's quite boring.

The history of housing discrimination in the US would challenge the notion that a middle class suburb would not push out minorities. This practice was rampant in the period after WW2 and continued into the 70s and 80s. It has little to do with notional affordability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

Interesting. I suppose that could have some effect, but I was not even born until housing discrimination was over with and when I moved into my small town it was largely farmland and not much of a suburb until a decade later.

Further, if housing discrimination was still going on in the 90's and 00's, I have no idea where these people were being "pushed out" to. The closest towns/cities with significant racial minority populations were at least 250 miles away...the city I grew up outside of was 90% white (currently 82% white) and there were/are plenty of undesirable locations there. It's middle America, there are just a ton of white people (sorry?).

Buuuut the implicit claim is that not being around diversity is somehow bad for you.

I think the claim is actually this: not being around sufficient levels of diversity is somehow bad for you.

Where are the "all" hispanic outreach programs in tech?

I think the appropriate dig is "where are the Hispanics in tech" and "where are the Hispanics in tech building explicit bridges to their communities." HBCUs are the result of affluent blacks fighting for land grants at the turn of the 20th century since many states refused to grant land for the formation of integrated colleges and universities. This program, love it or hate it, is 100+ years in the making.

Fair to mention that Howard U does not discriminate on race in admissions.

China may not be ethnically diverse but certainly it is culturally -- so I don't get the hypothetical born in China example.

No, it isn't.

Sure, in some parts of the country, it is. But in other parts of the country, it isn't.

It's part of the DNA basically if you only look at big cities on the coasts.

big cities on the coasts, and the Southwest, and the Southeast, so, everywhere except the Plains states

Also, Palo Alto is a big city on the coast.