Apparently, while diversity in neighborhoods and cities can drive creative and economic forces, it can also lead to civic disengagement. People in diverse communities are more likely to:
“… distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”
And
“There were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.”
Read the long-ish article in the Boston Globe.
(And thanks to aldaily.com for pointing the way.)
“… distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.â€
Having lived in “diverse” neighborhoods for some time now, this actually sound like the profile of most of the people who choose these neighborhoods. They’re that way when they move in, not because the neighborhood makes them that way.
Would you say that you’re talking about the white folks who move there, or do mean the whites, blacks, latinos, asians, and the rest?
When we lived in the Mayfair it was very “diverse”, if you’re counting diversity by skin color, ethnic background, and sexual orientation. But they weren’t that diverse in experience, education, and outlook. One of the things that frustrated me most about living there was the awfulness of our condo board, where everyone would get together and complain for 4 or 5 hours, and then leave, expecting that someone else would fix their problems. When we actually had elections for the board, we could never get a quorum together.
In my current neighborhood, right after we moved here, there was a big meeting on crime in the neighborhood. It was the first community meeting I went to and I was surprised at how big the meeting was, over a hundred people of every race and background. The police sent representatives and there was a city councilman there. The meeting lasted over three hours, just one constant stream of griping. The police made a bunch of suggestions, the president of the association agreed to set up a neighborhood watch. The next meeting was to organize the watch, and three people showed up. They were spent, they’d done their complaining and that’s all they really wanted to do. It was someone else’s job to fix the problem.
There are about 7 highly active people in our neighborhood now. We’re all very involved in documenting and reporting crime, working with developers to improve the neighborhood, meeting with our council-people to get good legislation involved. We’re all white. I don’t know why that is, but it is. We’ve had other people of other backgrounds come to the meetings, fuss at us about how things aren’t getting done to their satisfaction. We always try to get them to participate, join our efforts, make things better, and they always fail to show up. And all but one of us have talked about just giving up and moving to the suburbs.
It sounds to me as though you’re just describing how people are universally!
What I meant was, when you said that people who move into diverse neighborhoods are already civically uninvolved or distrustful, are you speaking about white folks, or everyone? Like, the black people who live in those areas would be less civically involved than other black people, no matter where they live?