Tag Archives: urban

It’s Who You Know

There’s an old saying to the effect that it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know. There’s a lot of truth to that, and it’s why cities are so important.

The other day, I read one of those pious rants from a privileged old white guy–it may have been Charles Koch–about how the minimum wage is bad for poor people because it makes them dependent. It’s easy enough to mock people who see no connection between the government goodies they enjoy–the business subsidies and tax breaks and the like–and government rules that benefit poorer folks–but these lectures betray another aspect of their cluelessness. I’d be willing to bet that Charles Koch and his ilk don’t really know any poor people.

They may have servants who are poor, of course. But that’s a lot different than living in a economically diverse neighborhood, or riding public transportation with an assortment of city dwellers, or having your kids go to school with children from varied backgrounds.

Even in cities, of course, we see increasing economic segregation. But there was a lot of truth to that wonderful old rant The Urban Archipelago —

Look around you, urbanite, at the multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, and tribes that are smashed together in every urban center (yes, even Seattle): We’re for that. We’re for pluralism of thought, race, and identity.

The real virtue of urban diversity is that it bestows a larger framework for understanding the world and the variety of people who populate it. If your only contact with “poor people” is on television or through the writing of ideologically compatible pundits–if you view “them”only from the comfort and distance of your gated community,or through the window of your air-conditioned Mercedes– it’s easy to make assumptions about their lives and habits.

Many years ago, when my sons were in high school (Tech, in downtown Indianapolis), a girl began calling my middle son every night at dinner time. After the fifth or sixth time, annoyed, I indulged a sexist stereotype and snapped “Tell her to stop calling you, that boys call girls; girls don’t call boys!” To which he replied, “But mom, I can’t call her. Her family doesn’t have a phone.”

I don’t think I’d ever known anyone who didn’t have a telephone. But my sons’ lives and moral imaginations have been immeasurably enlarged because they did.

Stereotyping of all kinds depends on ignorance. That’s true of racial and religious stereotyping, and it’s equally true of economic stereotyping. The virtue of cities is that “smashing together” of real human beings–a smashing that makes it harder (not impossible, but harder) to substitute assumptions about other people for actual knowledge of them.

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The Urban Archipelago

When I was doing research for my book “Distrust, American Style,” I came across an article written just after George W. Bush defeated John Kerry. The author rejected the “red state/blue state” divide, in favor of a more fine-grained analysis comparing voters in urban and rural areas. Cities tend to be blue, rural areas tend to be red; most states are thus “purple.” He called the blue islands in seas of red “Urban Archipelagos,” and attributed urban voting patterns to the lessons and attitudes one learns living in close proximity to other people. Urban life is diverse; it requires progressive attitudes and a degree of tolerance largely missing from more bucolic settings.

A recent survey by Pew on attitudes toward abortion tends to support that thesis–although what Pew was measuring were religious and denominational differences on the issue. As religious scholar Martin Marty summarizes the findings,

“Almost sixty percent “say that at least some health care professionals in their communities should provide abortion.” This time white evangelical Protestants are anti-abortion and joined by Latino Catholics. “White mainline” and “unaffiliated” are most “pro” (at 72% and 71%). “White Catholic” and (here’s one surprise for me) black Protestants, line up next (58% and 56%) as pro-abortion. Least enthusiastic is the third duo, “Latino Catholic” and “white evangelical” (at 38% and 37%). One large gap is between the pro-abortion among metropolitan areas (67%) and rural dwellers (39%). ” (emphasis supplied)

When you think about it, the urban/rural differences make a lot of sense. In a city, you soon learn the folly of insisting that everyone adhere to your personal religious and moral beliefs. You learn to live and let live. If you are truly open to the society of people with different backgrounds, ideas and customs, you may even come to question some of your own beliefs and prejudices, and to appreciate that–as an old friend of mine used to put it–it’s a very thin pancake that has only one side.

I think that’s the original definition of a “liberal.”


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