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NYANKS on 26 September 2010
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HappySqurriel said:
NYANKS said:
TheRealMafoo said:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315078/Race-maps-America.html

Interesting that the more Republican leaning cities seem to be the most integrated. Popular opinion would have said otherwise.

I mean, NYC is more democratic leaning and it's quite diverse. 

New York is diverse but doesn't appear to be particularly integrated. From the look of the map it seems like different racial groups are far more segregated than in other areas.

With such a small sample, it is difficult to say whether voting patterns have anything to do with racial integration; but I do wonder if there was a connection would the racial segregation/integration be the cause or result of voting and policy decisions. I would personally suspect that certain "progressive" policies have unintentionally enforced segregation. What I mean by that is fairly simple, initiatives like welfare and public housing (while well intentioned) are known to re-enforce poverty; and those policies (along with other initiatives) may have had the unintended consequence of maintaining racial segregation. On a side note, if this hypothesis was true it would have a potential (awful) side effect of encouraging further intervention in the economy which would (likely) have similarly negative outcomes.

I think there is a certain human truth that people don't like to think of.  People like to live with people of similar cultures and values.  I live in NYC.  In one of the boroughs, Brooklyn, a humongous Chinese district has sprung from a very small one.  They could live in other places in Brooklyn, but they choose to live in a mass that spans many consecutive blocks. 

Although I also know of what you speak.  In another NYC borough, the Bronx (home of the Yankees!), rent controlled housing during the 70's and a horrific urban planning blueprint had the epic fail side effect of destroying nice communities and leading to a bit of segregation, as you said.  Economics can certainly have these effects.