The city had a large foreign-born population (26.5 percent in 1990), leading to broader diversity, which, the Harvard and Berkeley economists say, is a good predictor of mobility.
This is a city of immigrants 38 percent of the city's population today is foreign-born and immigrants and their children have historically experienced significant upward mobility in America.
By 1996 foreign-born immigrants who had arrived before 1970 had a home ownership rate of 75.6 percent, higher than the 69.8 percent rate among native-born Americans.