Atticman

yes and no. the "flow" is most certainly not tops in north america, but the percentage as compared to it's own metro population likely is. for example, chicago has double the foreign born population of toronto, but the percentage or "flavor" is going to be less noticeable in a bigger city. still, you could rightly make the case that chicago, for example, is double the immigrant magnet that toronto is. http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/734 *i poked around and looked at ohio immigration for comparison: columbus metro is pretty clear cut. it has around 100k known immigrants and so runs around approx 8% foreign born (so it's the ohio "flavor" winner). and cleveland metro has more foreign born (making it the ohio "flow" winner), but the % is less. cols msa http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research957b_sup cleveland pmsa http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research0b07_sup cinci pmsa http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research75c0_sup I don't know where you got your information concerning immigrant populations in Toronto and Chicago, but it's incorrect. Toronto has a larger foreign born population than Chicago both percentage wise and in raw numbers. Here's a list of the top ten world cities (metro areas) with the largest foreign born populations. The first set of numbers is the foreign born population, the second is the metro population, and the third is the percentage of foreign born in the metro. The country names listed after the numbers represent the two largest source nations in the respective city's immigrant population. Keep in mind that Toronto's numbers are from 2001 and Chicago's are from 2005, and Toronto has grown significantly since then, and Canada's definition of what constitutes a "metro" area is much more restrictive than the huge "consolidated" metros in the US. 1. New York 5.117.290--18.351.099--27.89% (2005) Dominican Rep, China 2. Los Angeles 4.407.210--12.703.423--34.69% (2005) Mexico, Philippines 3. Toronto 2.091.100--4.647.960--44.99% (2001) China, India 4. Miami 1.949.629--5.334.685--36.55% (2005) Cuba, Haiti 5. London 1.940.390--7.172.091--27.05% (2001) India, Ireland 6. Chicago 1.625.649--9.272.117--17.53% (2005) Mexico, Poland 7. Sydney 1.235.908--3.961.451--31.20% (2001) UK, China 8. San Francisco 1.201.209--4.071.751--29.50% (2005) Mexico, Philippines 9. Moscow--1.128.035--10.382.754--10.90% (2002) Ukraine, Azerbaijan 10. Houston--1.113.875--5.193.448--21.45% (2005) Mexico, El Salvador