Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, completed some research on ethnic diversity not long ago. Apparently, he found that after data had been adjusted for income and other factors, high degrees of ethnic diversity also indicate high levels of distrust in a community.
Putnam told the Financial Times that in diverse communities, people "don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions." He added that he "delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity."
Part of what has emerged is Putnam’s Saguaro Seminar, which focuses on "expanding what we know about our levels of trust and community engagement and on developing strategies and efforts to increase this engagement. It strives to develop a handful of far-reaching, actionable ideas to significantly increase Americans’ connectedness to one another and to community institutions." In a recent talk on the subject, Putnam outlined that "longer term, successful immigrant societies renew their cohesion by deconstructing lines of ethnic difference and constructing a new, more capacious sense of ‘we.’" (Listen to an interview with Putnam for more on this.)
In the news bits section of the November 1 issue of Springfield’s An Afro-American Point of View, owner and publisher Frederick Hurst writes about being excluded from the funding opportunities, interview list, and press briefings during the late September visit of an Urban Land Institute panel. From the bits:
[I]t certainly would have been reassuring if the invitation to participate in the funding of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) researchers had been extended to more businesses. I, for one, would have participated and I’m certain others would have. Who decided? Ditto for the interviewee list. Who decided and how?
I was muscled onto the latter list by my wife, who had to remind folks that, besides having a history of economic development and business in Springfield, I was the Black owner and publisher of the only Afro-American newspaper in the region. I wasn’t even originally invited to the news briefings!
And, I came away from the Friday closing briefing by ULI with my original feeling that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” Is it too much to ask that we have a “real” place at the table?
Assembling the resources and to-do list for "ULI week" must have been a daunting task, made more so because of the various groups and individuals who all have a stake here in the city. And they’re not necessarily connected to each other—they’re valuable and unique in their own ways. How can we make sure that the representation is fair, even-handed, and respectfully carried out? As Hurst mentioned, I heard murmurs of people feeling shut out of the process, and the time available for the tour, the interviews, and the assessment as a whole was tight indeed.
Meanwhile, Amherst-based blogger Tom Devine called Springfield a political dead zone in a post yesterday, asking how its culture can be revived. He wonders where our leaders and reformers will come from, and writes:
[T]he level of interest in local politics is so low because the powers-that-be in Springfield have conspired for decades to keep it low. They drove out the best activists, so that the incompetent and corrupt might prosper undisturbed. The media coverage of politics was purposely shallow and dull, because an interested public is an active one, and they preferred an electorate who slept. You can’t discourage the public repeatedly over the years with a closed, non-inclusive political elite, aided by an unholy alliance with the local media, and then suddenly say, "Okay everybody, wake-up and get involved!" It takes time to rebuild the body politic; it can’t be restored overnight, just as it was not destroyed overnight.
Maybe Putnam would add that activism is muted here also because increased ethnic diversity has a way of shutting us indoors, in front of our televisions (one aspect of his study he cited to the Finanical Times). We’re so uncertain where we’re headed, that we go somewhat numb.
But numbness is the last thing we need from our leaders today. And our feelings of helplessness and being excluded, no matter how true, have to be overcome by force of will, if nothing else.
