{"id":152,"date":"2008-09-22T17:16:05","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T22:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=152"},"modified":"2008-09-22T17:16:05","modified_gmt":"2008-09-22T22:16:05","slug":"new-york-really-is-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2008\/09\/22\/new-york-really-is-better\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Really is Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Page<\/a> says so (well not exactly):<\/p>\n

New York City is the perfect example of diversity functioning well,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting place that produces lots of innovation and creativity. It\u2019s not a coincidence that New York has so much energy and also so much diversity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The University or Michigan Political Scientist<\/a> recently wrote a book making the case for the productivity benefits of diversity.\u00a0 This research underscores a growing body of literature extolling the benefits of diversity. \u00a0 University of Illinois-Chicago’s Cedric Herring <\/a>summarized in the Washington Post<\/a> findings from his study of diversity in corporate America.\u00a0 he found:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s undeniable that all sorts of institutions are better because of diversity. \u00a0\u00a0 Sam Sommers<\/a> at Tufts came to a similar conclusion about the role of diversity in group settings (per the same Washington Post Article<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Page suggests<\/a> that groups produce these better outcomes because diverse groups are more flexible at problem solving:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But if all this is true, why do we still overwhelmingly choose to live in homogeneous neighborhoods<\/a>?\u00a0 If diversity enhances our workplaces, schools and military, then wouldn’t our neighborhoods be better off with more difference?\u00a0 Is comfort and familiarity the enemy of productivity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Page says so (well not exactly): New York City is the perfect example of diversity functioning well,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting place that produces lots of innovation and creativity. It\u2019s not a coincidence that New York has so much energy and also so much diversity. The University or Michigan Political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[641,642,110],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-diversity","tag-productivity","tag-segregation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}