Diversity

Roissy today pulls out the old standby: Diversity+Proximity=War. If this were a post about game, I'd have to defer, but it's not.

Diversity + Proximity + crappy opportunities = War. I've been endeavoring to understand why Houston, Downtown Atlanta, and Rural North Carolina have been so much better on the race issues than was Chicago, DC, Hawaii, etc. My inclination is to suggest that economics wins.

When everyone who wants a job can get a job...when everyone willing to work can find some...folks are busy improving their lives...and they don't have time for diversity conflicts.

However, when institutional structures are so badly structured as to make decent jobs scarce, and many of the better jobs politically viable, then you get a strong, deep competition that breaks along clan lines...and the clan lines can be racial, religious, national, or political.

In my experience...Houston didn't have a race problem, pre-Katrina. Folks were busy working, and the unemployment rate was zero. Same with other rich places. If you can afford to make your life better, and the best way to do so is with your own sweat, you don't have time to worry about whether the purple guy down the road. If you can't? Then we've got room for envy and war.