I spent the first 22 years of my life living in Massachusetts around the Boston area and a lot of my fondest childhood memories center around celebrating multiculturism: St Patrick's day parades in Southie, Saint Anthony's feasts in the North End, August Moon Festival in Chinatown, etc.
> Wouldn’t New York City be a better city—cleaner, less corrupt, more orderly—if it was in Massachusetts?
I don't think so, I also lived in NYC for a year in 1999 and have visited it many times before and since and found NYC a much more interesting and vibrant place than Massachusetts, though both have their charms.
Those are all superficial. Without those cultural influences, Massachusetts would still be basically the same state, just with worse food.
> I don't think so, I also lived in NYC for a year in 1999 and have visited it many times before and since and found NYC a much more interesting and vibrant place than Massachusetts, though both have their charms.
“Vibrant” is a euphemism for “chaotic and dirty.” Nobody ever says Copenhagen is “vibrant.” Massachusetts is objectively better than New York in almost every way. It has great schools while New York has shit schools, but Massachusetts spends 25% less per student. Massachusetts has much lower corruption, greater state capacity to perform public works, etc. Those are the measures of a place—not whether it is “vibrant” or “interesting.”
If you think that culture is substantive rather than superficial, then it follows logically. America is extremely successful. So it should be skeptical of cultural influence from places that are very unsuccessful.
> The feature that makes "American culture" powerful is exactly that it assimilates to the people who come here, not that they assimilate to it
But is that true? Massachusetts is one of the most functional states in the country. It is both affluent and prosperous, but also orderly and well governed. What’s a good part of Massachusetts culture that doesn’t come from the original British settlers and their descendants?
Wouldn’t New York City be a better city—cleaner, less corrupt, more orderly—if it was in Massachusetts?