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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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How can you prevent segregation and why would you do it?

I was spurred to ask this question by this article and especially this paragraph where author builds logical sequence connecting segregation with various social ills:

"These segregated schools ruined children's educational and economic opportunities. They achieved much less academically. Because of this segregation, many more dropped out. Many fewer went to colleges. Those that did were disproportionately likely to enroll in less rigorous institutions, like for-profit community colleges. Because of this segregation, they earned lower incomes as adults. They were more likely to end up in jail. Their health was worse. In the end, these 100,000 are much more likely than their peers to emerge as the most economically disadvantaged members of society — whereupon the cycle will likely repeat with their own children."

Author doesn't spell out what is the main cause here but we can guess. It can't be money related issues, because they could be solved without integration with a different tax scheme. It can't be some institutional racism cause he does provide examples of black charter and views them as failures. No, in my understanding the single most useful benefit that black children lose out here is diversity in itself. Obviously there is a question of white and asian kids faring pretty fine without it and also the counterargument along the lines of DR slogan "you don't have right to a white people", but let's accept their premise as true. There are after all many instrumental benefits to your populace not being concentrated into the ethnic enclaves, assimilation is useful and if Romans could do it with the Gauls why Americans can't. What you can do to integrate schools once and for all?

The solution preferred by author - the repeat of the policies of forced integration doesn't work in the context of liberal democracy with freedom of movement and widespread desire to avoid "bad" schools i.e. schools with poor black people in them. 60s policies just kicked the can down the road and led to the white flight. Modern one that tries to do the same will end up similarly, maybe with much stark division in the end.

Successful desegregation should make resegregation not illegal but not desirable or simple. In the search of the solution, I think it's wise to try to emulate post-soviet conditions, because despite large immigration from much poorer countries generally Russian cities were resistant to segregation, the most ethnic districts in Moscow range from 20 to 50 percent of immigrants and not for the lack of them. What causes this? Multi floor apartments/soviet block housing allows for diverse quality and quantity of housing at the same place. Poor migrants often rent or buy small one bedroom flat to retrofit it into something more fitting for the Hong Kong, working class citizen or a student will live in similar one if alone or slightly bigger when married and/or with kids, middle class can afford to have good amount of square meters per person and each child will always have their own room, upper class will have can easily have double the space of a middle one and has option of uniting several flats into one. And all of them can live in the one building, use the same parking space and their children will go into the same school(private schools that cater to rich people exist but not everybody cares enough to opt for them).

Then we have widespread public transport that by existing devalues personal car infrastructure and makes getting into the city from some suburb much harder even in the smaller towns. And what maybe considered the most important part by people here is the law enforcement that while far from perfect for example both in Poland and in Russia(still much worse in the latter) does work at keeping streets safe, public transit clean and gangs non-existent(apart from the ones that get in with the government but that's a different story). I think democratic politicians can achieve this kind of integration and they have reason to do it, YIMBY i.e. urbanist faction becomes more powerful by the day in the local elections and I can see some of the people affiliated with it succeeding in the desegregation maybe without even make it a goal. But ideological solutions from people who do make it a goal can sink it all again.

And what maybe considered the most important part by people here is the law enforcement that while far from perfect for example both in Poland and in Russia(still much worse in the latter) does work at keeping streets safe, public transit clean and gangs non-existent.

This seems deeply incorrect to me. Warsaw (and also the rest of Poland for that matter) doesn’t have stricter policing than London, and I’ve never witnessed any police take action on litterers. The one possibility I can imagine to explain this is that maybe littering is contagious and we have few homeless who get the ball rolling. Otherwise my explanation is that Polish people are just more hightrust+ pro social than the British.

I think both anti-littering and casual-littering are highly socially enforced more than anything the government does, and also have strong status-quo reinforcing mechanisms.

More high trust and pro social than the current inhabitants of London, which of course is mostly not British.

Per the most recent census, 59.3% of the population of London were born in the United Kingdom. The vast majority of these people are British, unless you are using "British" in some non-standard way which does not reflect the laws, customs, or practices of the United Kingdom.

British (as opposed to English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish) national identity was always civic and political from when it first became a thing in the 18th century. There is a reason why "I feel more British than English" is associated with left-establishment politics and "I feel more English than British" is associated with right-populist politics - it is the only question that predicted how people voted on Brexit better than age. (See https://ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-and-english-identity/ for poll results)