Comments on: Robert Putnam, and the complexities of diversity http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/08/10/robert-putnam-and-the-complexities-of-diversity/ EthanZ's musings on Africa, media and international development Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:45:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: quixote http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/08/10/robert-putnam-and-the-complexities-of-diversity/comment-page-1/#comment-491534 quixote Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:34:34 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/08/10/robert-putnam-and-the-complexities-of-diversity/#comment-491534 Putnam's conclusions about the long term consequences of living in diverse neighborhoods -- increased vitality and creativity -- make sense to me. Look at any big city. His short term conclusions don't. I've lived in a non-diverse community only once in my life. Maybe it didn't help that it was a gated one, but what I saw was cars gliding out of automatically opening garages, driving away, coming back, waiting for the automatic garage doors to open, and gliding back in. I began wondering if I'd missed the memo about having to use the air locks before leaving the space ship. One person's experience doesn't mean much against a large and thorough statistical study, but it seems to me he has to have missed something. My first thought was that residential mobility, ie living among strangers, might be the actual cause of unease, but you mention that as one of the factors he looked at and discounted. I'd be curious to hear more about that. What about the whole constellation of factors: lower incomes, lower education, less time in and familiarity with the given neighborhood? Usually all of these operate at once in diverse neighborhoods. Upscale, long term diverse neighborhoods are so few and far between it might be hard to get a large enough sample size for statistical significance. Putnam’s conclusions about the long term consequences of living in diverse neighborhoods — increased vitality and creativity — make sense to me. Look at any big city. His short term conclusions don’t. I’ve lived in a non-diverse community only once in my life. Maybe it didn’t help that it was a gated one, but what I saw was cars gliding out of automatically opening garages, driving away, coming back, waiting for the automatic garage doors to open, and gliding back in. I began wondering if I’d missed the memo about having to use the air locks before leaving the space ship.

One person’s experience doesn’t mean much against a large and thorough statistical study, but it seems to me he has to have missed something. My first thought was that residential mobility, ie living among strangers, might be the actual cause of unease, but you mention that as one of the factors he looked at and discounted. I’d be curious to hear more about that. What about the whole constellation of factors: lower incomes, lower education, less time in and familiarity with the given neighborhood? Usually all of these operate at once in diverse neighborhoods. Upscale, long term diverse neighborhoods are so few and far between it might be hard to get a large enough sample size for statistical significance.

]]> By: Luke http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/08/10/robert-putnam-and-the-complexities-of-diversity/comment-page-1/#comment-490656 Luke Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:01:05 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/08/10/robert-putnam-and-the-complexities-of-diversity/#comment-490656 Perhaps not strictly incremental, but did you see the case study on performance-based contracting for road maintenance in Chad? http://www.worldbank.org/transport/roads/resource-guide/Case-Chad.htm Perhaps not strictly incremental, but did you see the case study on performance-based contracting for road maintenance in Chad?
http://www.worldbank.org/transport/roads/resource-guide/Case-Chad.htm

]]> By: JamesPage http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/08/10/robert-putnam-and-the-complexities-of-diversity/comment-page-1/#comment-485709 JamesPage Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:58:51 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/08/10/robert-putnam-and-the-complexities-of-diversity/#comment-485709 Ethan, I am sad that you do not credit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Schumacher" rel="nofollow">E. F. Schumacher</a> book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_is_Beautiful" rel="nofollow">Small is beautiful </a> for the idea of incremental infrastructure. Allot of what seams to work in Africa follows the guidelines set up both by him and the economist on the other side of the political debate -- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thomas_Bauer" rel="nofollow"> PT Bauer</a> We seam to have forgotten everything they said... With regards to power generation when I worked with Herman Chinery Hesse at Soft / SoftTribe we worked out that the pay back in using solar generation was about 18 months. The main reason that solar was good value was that we did not need a back-up diesel generator.. We did not need to buy diesel... Often the reason for power failure at that time was that there was no diesel to buy at Tema for either the main electricity generators or for ones own personal use... We just did not have the spare capital to invest in solar panels. It is a great shame that Russell is not pushing for a eco friendly solution! Ethan,

I am sad that you do not credit E. F. Schumacher book Small is beautiful for the idea of incremental infrastructure. Allot of what seams to work in Africa follows the guidelines set up both by him and the economist on the other side of the political debate — PT Bauer

We seam to have forgotten everything they said…

With regards to power generation when I worked with Herman Chinery Hesse at Soft / SoftTribe we worked out that the pay back in using solar generation was about 18 months. The main reason that solar was good value was that we did not need a back-up diesel generator.. We did not need to buy diesel… Often the reason for power failure at that time was that there was no diesel to buy at Tema for either the main electricity generators or for ones own personal use… We just did not have the spare capital to invest in solar panels. It is a great shame that Russell is not pushing for a eco friendly solution!

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