We Love Diversity, If It’s Only Skin-Deep

Our Communities Are Getting More Diverse in Color, Less Diverse In Anything Else

At a conference on cities and political diversity in Pittsburgh a few years ago, a gentleman from Philadelphia was proudly ticking down the demographic menu offered in his big-city community. He paged through the atlas of countries represented in his neighborhood as proof that the central city had become a model of peaceful, vibrant, and democratic heterogeneity.

I asked, “Well, how many Republicans do you have there in your diverse neighborhood?”

“Oh,” he sputtered, “there aren’t any Republicans!”

We cluck about our growing “diversity”—I often see multi-colored “Celebrate Diversity” bumper stickers here in …