{"id":464,"date":"2009-01-21T07:22:21","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T13:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/crawler\/?p=464"},"modified":"2009-01-20T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-20T23:00:00","slug":"a-lumpy-melting-pot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2009\/01\/21\/a-lumpy-melting-pot\/","title":{"rendered":"a lumpy melting pot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Creative Commons licensed photo by urbanreviewstl on flickr.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/62004680@N00\/3185057486\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3265\/3185057486_722482d875_t.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"subdivision\" \/><\/a>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/01\/18\/AR2009011802323.html\">Washington Post<\/a> reports on how the idea of America as an &#8216;ideological melting pot&#8217; &#8211; in the context of the progress marked by the inauguration of our 44th President &#8211; may not be entirely true. This article highlights how researchers find that people want to live in diverse communities, but clump together with those most like them&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Americans tell survey researchers they prefer to live in diverse communities, but this country&#8217;s residential patterns suggest otherwise,&#8221; said\u00a0Paul Taylor, who directs the Pew Research Center&#8217;s Social and Demographic Trends Project. The question is why.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Do some people gravitate toward communities so they can be among neighbors who share their political views?&#8221; Taylor and his colleague Richard Morin asked in a recent report. &#8220;Alternatively, does living in a politically homogeneous community diminish people&#8217;s appetite for diversity?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And sociologists?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Sociologists have a term for this birds-of-a-feather-flocking-together phenomenon: Homophily. Some explanations for America&#8217;s political homophily suggest that a president who is determined to be a uniter might be able to help the nation reverse course; other theories suggest that the forces of polarization are beyond the powers of any individual to influence.<\/p>\n<p>Sociologist Michael W. Macy at\u00a0Cornell University\u00a0argues that political homophily is largely the result of network dynamics: Neighborhoods coalesce around certain viewpoints because people don&#8217;t want to feel at odds with those around them. As views in a neighborhood become more homogenous, outliers feel like outcasts. They move if an opportunity arises, leaving their old neighborhood less politically diverse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/01\/18\/AR2009011802323.html\">Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Post reports on how the idea of America as an &#8216;ideological melting pot&#8217; &#8211; in the context of the progress marked by the inauguration of our 44th President &#8211; may not be entirely true. This article highlights how researchers find that people want to live in diverse communities, but clump together with those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39074],"tags":[29,38,116,39111],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sightings","tag-class","tag-methods","tag-networks","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}