Scott Page says so (well not exactly):

New York City is the perfect example of diversity functioning well,” he said in an interview. “It’s an exciting place that produces lots of innovation and creativity. It’s not a coincidence that New York has so much energy and also so much diversity.

The University or Michigan Political Scientist recently wrote a book making the case for the productivity benefits of diversity.  This research underscores a growing body of literature extolling the benefits of diversity.   University of Illinois-Chicago’s Cedric Herring summarized in the Washington Post findings from his study of diversity in corporate America.  he found:

those companies that have very low levels of racial and ethnic minorities have the lowest profits and the lowest market share and the lowest number of customers.

It’s undeniable that all sorts of institutions are better because of diversity.    Sam Sommers at Tufts came to a similar conclusion about the role of diversity in group settings (per the same Washington Post Article):

Sommers asked all-white and diverse groups to read short passages and then asked them to answer SAT-style questions about the passages. When the topics touched on race — affirmative action, for example — whites who were part of diverse groups answered more questions correctly than people in all-white groups.

Page suggests that groups produce these better outcomes because diverse groups are more flexible at problem solving:

What the model showed was that diverse groups of problem solvers outperformed the groups of the best individuals at solving problems. The reason: the diverse groups got stuck less often than the smart individuals, who tended to think similarly.

But if all this is true, why do we still overwhelmingly choose to live in homogeneous neighborhoods?  If diversity enhances our workplaces, schools and military, then wouldn’t our neighborhoods be better off with more difference?  Is comfort and familiarity the enemy of productivity?