[URBANTH-L]
REV: Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (A review of Robert Putman's latest book)
Angela Jancius
jancius at ohio.edu
Thu Aug 9 20:30:02 EDT 2007
The downside of diversity
A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What
happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?
The Boston Globe
By Michael Jonas | August 5, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/04/the_downside_of_diversity/?page=1
IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity
as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from
political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us
stronger.
But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000
people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political
scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on
declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a
community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they
give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse
communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in
the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic
engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are
lower in more diverse settings.
"The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of
Michigan political scientist.
The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the
focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions
to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues.
The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm
large-scale immigration causes to the nation's social fabric. But with
demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater
diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling
social changes that Putnam's research predicts.
"We can't ignore the findings," says Ali Noorani, executive director of the
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The big question we
have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?"
The study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging from
recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us uncomfortable -- but
discomfort, it turns out, isn't always a bad thing. Unease with differences
helps explain why teams of engineers from different cultures may be ideally
suited to solve a vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic
give-and-take, generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people
with more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though,
Putnam's work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more
diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective
needs and goals.
His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for
Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the
pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam
has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data
in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results.
He then spent several years testing other possible explanations.
When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the
journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from
data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of
diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity
may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.
"Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such
social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk," wrote
conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register
op-ed titled "Greater diversity equals more misery."
Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic player,
someone willing to describe social problems and then have a hand in
addressing them. He says social science should be "simultaneously rigorous
and relevant," meeting high research standards while also "speaking to
concerns of our fellow citizens." But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and
race, Putnam worries that many people hear only what they want to.
"It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny
the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity," he
writes in the new report. "It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical
and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is
both feasible and desirable."
Putnam is the nation's premier guru of civic engagement. After studying
civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to
the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in
1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling "Bowling
Alone." The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a
sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with
presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the
country's best known social scientists.
Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in "social
capital," a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social
networks -- whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood
associations -- that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When
social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live.
Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.
The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among
residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into
the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic,
and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those
of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes
and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement
in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse
communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything
from political engagement to the state of social ties.
Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about
coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick
Moynihan's landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the
breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried
as the bearer of "an inconvenient truth," says Putnam.
After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time
"kicking the tires really hard" to be sure the study had it right. Putnam
realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger,
have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among
their residents -- all factors that could depress social capital independent
of any impact ethnic diversity might have.
"People would say, 'I bet you forgot about X,'" Putnam says of the string of
suggestions from colleagues. "There were 20 or 30 X's."
But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection
remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his
findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend 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."
"People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to 'hunker down' --
that is, to pull in like a turtle," Putnam writes.
In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant
schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the "contact" theory and
the "conflict" theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those
of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between
groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and
discord.
Putnam's findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he
says, 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.
"Diversity, at least in the short run," he writes, "seems to bring out the
turtle in all of us."
The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it's become
commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in
the field say they shouldn't be.
"It's an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges
created by diversity," says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.
In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that
roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and
Europe -- Europe spends far more -- can be attributed to the greater ethnic
diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare
spending in the US is a "macro" version of the decreased civic engagement
Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.
Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent
studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of
social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower
school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa's
own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union
Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age,
occupation, and birthplace.
Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also
less likely to look out for one another. "Everyone is a little
self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff," says Kahn.
So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles -- the great
melting-pot cities that drive the world's creative and financial economies?
The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is at
odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where ethnic
diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort
diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a
liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research
suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and
innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the
University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking
among people from different cultures can be a boon.
"Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you,
that's challenging," says Page, author of "The Difference: How the Power of
Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies." "But by
hanging out with people different than you, you're likely to get more
insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive."
In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone,
but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace
may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of
creative culture.
Page calls it the "diversity paradox." He thinks the contrasting positive
and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but "there's
got to be a limit." If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it's
easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well.
"That's what's unsettling about his findings," Page says of Putnam's new
work.
Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more
homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam's worst fears
about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream of
conservative commentary has begun -- from places like the Manhattan
Institute and "The American Conservative" -- highlighting the harm the study
suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he's also
received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. "It
certainly is not pleasant when David Duke's website hails me as the guy who
found out racism is good," he says.
In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a
broader context by describing how social identity can change over time.
Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to "more
encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious sense of 'we,'"
he writes.
Growing up in the 1950s in small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion
of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he
says, such information was crucial to the question of "who was a possible
mate or date." The importance of marrying within one's faith, he says, has
largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants,
Catholics, and Jews.
While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more
stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term
prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.
In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses it to
help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America is not only
inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the
divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans can
help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests expanding
support for English-language instruction and investing in community centers
and other places that allow for "meaningful interaction across ethnic
lines."
Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering
ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out
of the role of dispassionate researcher. "You're just supposed to tell your
peers what you found," says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't expect academics to fret
about these matters."
But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what Putnam
has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to research questions
involving social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he
started at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that promotes efforts
throughout the country to increase civic connections in communities.
"Social scientists are both scientists and citizens," says Alan Wolfe,
director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston
College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam's efforts to affect some of the
phenomena he studies.
Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a social
scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a civic leader.
There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who never produce
research results at odds with their own worldview.
"The problem too often," says Wolfe, "is people are never uncomfortable
about their findings."
Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by
MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston.
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