[mcmama]

I am shopping for a community to move to within the next three years. I want to move back to the southern USA, where I was raised. Ideally, the ocean should be nearby, or less than an hours drive. Housing should be newer, well built, and moderately priced. And property taxes should not be the ridiculous problem they are here in NJ.

What I like about where I live now is that it is suburban, and very diverse ethnically, racially, religiously, and age wise. Black and white people are pretty well mixed across all income levels, and there are people here from all over the world, including all parts of Europe, asia, the middle east, africa, latin america, and the carribean. Some of the languages spoken around here besides english are spanish, hebrew, different chinese dialects, Japanese, Korean, Farsi, Urdu, Arabic, Russian, and tagalog. Religions include many kinds of Christianity from all over the world, some Hindu and Islamic houses of worship, and a lot of synagogues. Some of our neighborhoods are home to an increasing population of modern orthodox Jews. They make great neighbors, and are very focused on family.

The white people in my church are a strong minority. Some of us were discussing how when we go visit family in areas that are all white, we have a weird feeling like "hey, where did everyone else go?" When we have church suppers, fried chicken, potato salad, sushi and jamaican meat patties are popular specialties. One lady always brings goat stew and home made ginger beer. These are a big hit with everyone.

I know I am not going to get that variety, but where in the southeastern USA can I find communities with people mixing like this, celebrating their diversity but being uniquely proud of who they are?