OpinionJournal - The Death of Diversity
People in ethnically diverse settings don't care about each other
A lot of people, myself included, have wondered whether CIDs would produce more homogeneous (less diverse) neighborhoods because of the niche marketing that goes on, with people being targeted very specfically by age and other demographics with mailings and ads and other marketing appeals. The "seniors" community is the most obvious example of this. The implicit assumption behind this question is that diversity is a community asset, a position that is universally espoused by every political candidate, the media, and of course academia. Now here comes some evidence to the contrary.

Now comes word that diversity as an ideology may be dead, or not worth saving. Robert Putnam, the Harvard don who in the controversial bestseller "Bowling Alone" announced the decline of communal-mindedness amid the rise of home-alone couch potatoes, has completed a mammoth study of the effects of ethnic diversity on communities. His researchers did 30,000 interviews in 41 U.S. communities. Short version: People in ethnically diverse settings don't want to have much of anything to do with each other. "Social capital" erodes. Diversity has a downside.