is it true that a major characteristic of the American city was the easy integration..?

Question

of new immigrants into existing neighborhoods & amound existing residents during the 19th century?

Answer 1

Your assertion is not only not true, it has no basis in any type of reality.

Cities in the United States, as with cities everywhere, come into being due to a number of incentives. Primarily it is the need of commerce or protection. As new people come to work or live in the city the dynamics between them change and the direction of the city alters. It is not by design.

Answer 2

As long as there were already immigrant neighborhoods to go to, that was the case. In other words, when, say, Germans came over, which they did by the thousands in the 1840s and 1850s, they tended to go where other Germans had settled. They could share their common language, enjoy reading newspapers in their native tongue (such as the Nord Amerikan Zeitung in Illinois), an support one another in their endeavors.

Tinley Park and South Suburban Chicago is a good example of this. There was a lot of land for sale cheap in Illinois at the time cited above, and the majority of people purchasing land in southern Cook County came from various places in Germany. Ads were placed in German newspapers advertising the rich farms to be had; the fact that countrymen were already there helped with immigration as well.

Realize, however, that there was a downside to this immigration. There was a certain amount of crime--there were German gangs that roamed between St. Louis and Chicago, stealing property in one town and selling it in the other, for example. And the clanishness of the Germans (or other immigrants) generated a certain amount of xenophobia amongst the native born US citizens. This was for two reasons: one was that many Germans were Catholics, while most US citizens were Protestant; the other was that Germans tended to be abolitionists, and especially in St. Louis this roused tensions just before the Civil War.

Answer 3

Compared to most of the rest of the world, it has not been as awful as advertised. People from a certain background generally clump together, but, after a time, even former enemies mix together and integrate.

Even in the modern era, I doubt that members of active Christian churches are easily accepted in Saudi Arabia or Red China. Nor are Tutsi's highly welcome amongst Hutu's. And Muslims in the US vs those in France?

Answer 4

No. Existing neighborhoods felt threatened by new immigrants and didn't want them to be included.

Answer 5

No, the immigrants lived in isolated communities within the city.

Answer 6

Yes. The existing nationalities welcomes the newcomers and made it like home.