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Actually all the way back in 1900 Chicago was the 5th largest city on the planet.
London
New York
Paris
Berlin
Chicago
By 1950 it had dropped to 8th place. I believe today it is around 26th.
That's right, thanks. And it was a World City even back then when it was vastly European/White in demographics. How did it ever reach that status without "diversity" (which we all know today doesn't mean the difference between Poles and Irish)?
When my wife and I first moved to Uptown, she helped start a neighborhood drive to repair the ramshackle little park across the street. To get the City of Chicago to agree to help, we'd need to raise matching funds and sign up volunteer laborers. This kind of Robert D. Putnam-endorsed civic activity proved strikingly difficult in Uptown, however, precisely because of its remarkable diversity.
Uptown boasts of being the most linguistically diverse square mile in America. Supposedly, 88 different languages are spoken (or maybe 110, depending on who is telling the story). For someone like myself who is fascinated by studying the REALITIES of human diviersity, Uptown is wonderfully educational. Just don't call it a community.
The most obvious problem: it's hard to talk neighbors into donating money or time if they don't speak the same language as you do.
The second problem: the high crime rate. The affluent South Vietnamese merchants from the adjoining Little Saigon district on Argyle St. had scant interest in sending their kids to play in a park that would also be used by black kids from the local housing project. The Asians were generally scared of the much bigger and more raucous African-Americans.
Third problem: inter-immigrant hatreds. The Eritreans and Ethiopians are slender, elegant-looking dark brown people with Arab features. They appear identical to the American eye. But their compatriots back home in the Horn of Africa were fighting a vicious war.
Fourth problem: a lot of the immigrants came from countries where only a fool trusted his neighbors, much less the government. If the South Vietnamese had been less clannish and more ready to sacrifice for the greater good from 1965-1975, as their militaristic North Vietnamese enemies did, they'd be lousier restaurateurs. But they'd probably still have their own country.
Fifth problem: the fundamental difficulty in making multiculturalism work, namely, multiple cultures. Getting Koreans, Russians, Mexicans, Nigerians, and Assyrians (Christian Iraqis) to agree on how to landscape a park is not impossible. Yet it's certainly far more work than fostering consensus among people who all have the same picture in their heads of what a park is for.
For example, Russian women like to sunbathe. But Latin American women want to stay in the shade, since their culture discriminates in favor of fairer-skinned women. So do you plant a lot of shade trees or not? In the end, the middle class, English-speaking, native-born Americans (mostly white, but with plenty of black-white couples) did the bulk of the work.
And, after that struggle, everybody seemed to give up on trying to bring Uptown together for civic betterment.
Last edited by lionelrich; 10-22-2008 at 10:03 PM..
That's right, thanks. And it was a World City even back then when it was vastly European/White in demographics. How did it ever reach that status without "diversity" (which we all know today doesn't mean the difference between Poles and Irish)?
When my wife and I first moved to Uptown, she helped start a neighborhood drive to repair the ramshackle little park across the street. To get the City of Chicago to agree to help, we'd need to raise matching funds and sign up volunteer laborers. This kind of Robert D. Putnam-endorsed civic activity proved strikingly difficult in Uptown, however, precisely because of its remarkable diversity.
Uptown boasts of being the most linguistically diverse square mile in America. Supposedly, 88 different languages are spoken (or maybe 110, depending on who is telling the story). For someone like myself who is fascinated by studying the REALITIES of human diviersity, Uptown is wonderfully educational. Just don't call it a community.
The most obvious problem: it's hard to talk neighbors into donating money or time if they don't speak the same language as you do.
The second problem: the high crime rate. The affluent South Vietnamese merchants from the adjoining Little Saigon district on Argyle St. had scant interest in sending their kids to play in a park that would also be used by black kids from the local housing project. The Asians were generally scared of the much bigger and more raucous African-Americans.
Third problem: inter-immigrant hatreds. The Eritreans and Ethiopians are slender, elegant-looking dark brown people with Arab features. They appear identical to the American eye. But their compatriots back home in the Horn of Africa were fighting a vicious war.
Fourth problem: a lot of the immigrants came from countries where only a fool trusted his neighbors, much less the government. If the South Vietnamese had been less clannish and more ready to sacrifice for the greater good from 1965-1975, as their militaristic North Vietnamese enemies did, they'd be lousier restaurateurs. But they'd probably still have their own country.
Fifth problem: the fundamental difficulty in making multiculturalism work, namely, multiple cultures. Getting Koreans, Russians, Mexicans, Nigerians, and Assyrians (Christian Iraqis) to agree on how to landscape a park is not impossible. Yet it's certainly far more work than fostering consensus among people who all have the same picture in their heads of what a park is for.
For example, Russian women like to sunbathe. But Latin American women want to stay in the shade, since their culture discriminates in favor of fairer-skinned women. So do you plant a lot of shade trees or not? In the end, the middle class, English-speaking, native-born Americans (mostly white, but with plenty of black-white couples) did the bulk of the work.
And, after that struggle, everybody seemed to give up on trying to bring Uptown together for civic betterment.
I agree to an extent that diversity causes problems.Its the truth.People have differences.People want their culture to be more important than others so it creates clashes.Some cities and countries handle it better than others.However to ignore the histories of how and what drives patterns of immigrants to move to a new place is disingenuous.
That said diversity gives promise to possibilities than homogenous societies.Sameness,efficiency all just a few are not all its cracked to be .
Well, Tokyo can hardly be called boring, having sameness, etc. etc. It offers more than Chicago does despite avoiding the pitfalls, distrust, isolation, and tensions produced by diversity.
I'm done with this. My point was about the inconsistency the "A.T. Kearney" MBA's who wrote this ranking thing exhibit with their pathetic brainwashed liberal orthodoxy that only "Western" cities need diversity to be considered real or world-class. Their methodology in saying Chicago is ranked No. 8 because of "diversity and immigrants" is without any back-up whatsoever, and the 4 Asian cities on the list refute that premise. Only in the West is "diversity" necessary for acceptance under liberal dogma. Why is that? Why isn't anyone picketing the Japanese or Israeli consulates for "racism"? Why aren't these countries taken to task for lacking diversity?
it's really quite sad that so many Americans buy into this nonsense. They parrot diversity, diversity, diversity over and over like lemmings. Tokyo and Hong Kong have a far greater shot at outlasting Los Angeles and Chicago as top cities over the long haul, precisely because they don't import diversity and a welfare class. It will interesting to watch NY and London.
Last edited by lionelrich; 10-23-2008 at 12:48 AM..
ha ha, you out yourself to all as an anti-White racist and you probably HATE Japan and China for being homogenous and happy about it. Nothing is more hypocritical than the intolerance and reverse-racism of people like you! I know you better than you believe.
Back to the topic: To place Chicago No. 8 based on 'diversity and immigrants' is just laughable in its appalling lack of intellectualism or back up. Besides the inconsistency with some of the others in the Top Ten (tokyo, seoul, singapore, and hong kong) makes the premise even more shaky. Come up with a real reason for placing Chicago No. 8, that's all.
Me? I'm whiter than the day is long. Blond hair, blue eyes. No hate here.
Furthermore, I didn't make the list, so I'm not responsible for its rationale.
Perhaps we're both biased, you and I. However, you're still the dinosaur, as the US isn't getting any less inclusive, thank God.
I don't think Lionel1 is neccesarily being racist. I think he is observing a fundamental truth about human nature. Yes there are people who like/crave/fluorish in diverse areas. There are people who are uncomfortable with too much diversity. There have always been pockets of homogenous enclaves mixed with some truly diverse neighborhoods. I have no problem with these personal preferences as long as it doesn't spill over into dis-respect or hatred towards those who are different than you. Forcing people to live in an area too diverse for there comfort zone is not necesarily good, just like discriminatory segregation is bad. I think Lionel made a very accurate observation into how many people feel, but cannot or will not honestly state.
The liberal argument that "diversity is good" came out of the civil rights movement. The United States was founded by Europeans, (some of) who imported slaves from Africa to labor in the fields, and was in continuous struggle with the native people of the Americas who were pushed off their land to make way for the new nation. Additionally, the Mexicans to the south (largely a mix of Spanish Europeans and natives) laid claim to some of the land, and were set up in oppostion to the Northwest European settlers of the U.S.A. These were the ethnic and racial tensions that were BUILT IN to the United States from the start, and they have remained in some form into the present time.
So, the marginalized formerly enslaved black population of the United States began large-scale protests for equal rights in the mid-twentieth century, and many white Americans knew they were right and went along with it. White America had been mistreating the black minority for all of American history, and most Americans knew that. More than anything else, the "Celebrate Diversity" and "Tolerance" themes of the civil rights movement were a cry for society to treat people equally in spite of racial or ethnic differences.
For the civil rights movement "Celebrate Diversity" was a cry for us to all love one another and to realize and accept that people have differences. After the hatred and strife between white and black America for the last 400+ years, it was a call for peace. In time, "diversity" became a code word used by civil rights activists to attack institutions that still largely excluded blacks, such as elite universities, private clubs, or fancy suburbs.
In today's world, I'm really a bit puzzled as to how black/white or Latin American/white "diversity" can be considered a strength in the context of this study. Lack of diversity can easily be attacked because there is often a racist reason for it beneath the surface (i.e. unfair housing practices or discrimination). But in terms of a city's international influence and reach, I fail to see how the racial groups that have been in and around America for hundreds of years have much of an impact. The rest of the world doesn't care about our long-standing internal ethnic strife.
However, the new diversity of immigrants from around the world DEFINITELY make Chicago more "international" by almost every measure. As an example, I once worked at an international architecture firm that did work all over the world. Our office had employees from all over the world, and was sort of a magnet for great architectural talent worldwide. Clients valued our firm's diversity as well. For instance, Chinese clients liked that we had Chinese employees who understood cultural differences and spoke the language. As you can imagine, there are certain values that the Chinese have that might be incorporated into a bulding's design. Koreans may have different tastes or cultural sensitivities, etc. In this case, the diversity of our firm was a major advantage that a firm in say, Milwaukee or Detroit, couldn't match.
Last edited by Lookout Kid; 10-23-2008 at 11:49 AM..
Back to the topic: To place Chicago No. 8 based on 'diversity and immigrants' is just laughable in its appalling lack of intellectualism or back up. Besides the inconsistency with some of the others in the Top Ten (tokyo, seoul, singapore, and hong kong) makes the premise even more shaky. Come up with a real reason for placing Chicago No. 8, that's all.
No one equated diversity and number of immigrants with intellectualism. However, one of the reasons I believe Chicago is extremely diverse is because of places like the Univ. of Chicago - Hyde Park is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country and is extremely intellectual. Northwestern is techinically in Evanston, but it's also an extraordinarily diverse, university town. Then there are places like Albany Park which is an underserved community, but also one of the most diverse in the nation.
Well, Tokyo can hardly be called boring, having sameness, etc. etc. It offers more than Chicago does despite avoiding the pitfalls, distrust, isolation, and tensions produced by diversity.
I'm done with this. My point was about the inconsistency the "A.T. Kearney" MBA's who wrote this ranking thing exhibit with their pathetic brainwashed liberal orthodoxy that only "Western" cities need diversity to be considered real or world-class. Their methodology in saying Chicago is ranked No. 8 because of "diversity and immigrants" is without any back-up whatsoever, and the 4 Asian cities on the list refute that premise. Only in the West is "diversity" necessary for acceptance under liberal dogma. Why is that? Why isn't anyone picketing the Japanese or Israeli consulates for "racism"? Why aren't these countries taken to task for lacking diversity?
it's really quite sad that so many Americans buy into this nonsense. They parrot diversity, diversity, diversity over and over like lemmings. Tokyo and Hong Kong have a far greater shot at outlasting Los Angeles and Chicago as top cities over the long haul, precisely because they don't import diversity and a welfare class. It will interesting to watch NY and London.
No it's not racist I get you and what you are saying.I don't know so im not gonna assume anything about accept what you say.Why do you have to be liberal to like diversity?It is true that mostly western based societies that have this principal.One could make the argument that is why they have been the most powerful on a global level through history.That's true from the Romans,the Greeks.I rarely see a sports team all black,white,Mexican team do better than team with some sort of mix sports team.In the ancient/old world the divisions were more commonly religion,class or sex.Race came much later.
I don't think Lionel1 is neccesarily being racist. I think he is observing a fundamental truth about human nature. Yes there are people who like/crave/fluorish in diverse areas. There are people who are uncomfortable with too much diversity. There have always been pockets of homogenous enclaves mixed with some truly diverse neighborhoods. I have no problem with these personal preferences as long as it doesn't spill over into dis-respect or hatred towards those who are different than you. Forcing people to live in an area too diverse for there comfort zone is not necesarily good, just like discriminatory segregation is bad. I think Lionel made a very accurate observation into how many people feel, but cannot or will not honestly state.
I agree completely with what you say.Just because i choose to live around other black people does not make me racist or even anti diversity.Everyone has there own reasons.Some blacks grew up in all white areas.When they get on there own they some times want to live among people that have similar issues.
[SIZE=2]Subject: Sweet Home Chicago
[/SIZE]
Body count. In the last six months:
Chicago - 292 killed (murdered)
Iraq - 221
Chicago is a combat zone.
Who is in charge? The leadership in Illinois :
Senator Barack Obama (Democrat)
Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat)
Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (Democrat)
Governor. Rod Blogojevich (Democrat)
House leader Mike Madigan (Democrat)
Attorney General. Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike), (Democrat)
Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of former Mayor Richard J. Daley) (Democrat)
Of course they're all blaming each other. Why? They can't blame Republicans -- there aren't any!
State pension fund -- $44 Billion in debt . W orst in country : Cook County (Chicago)
Sales tax -- 10.25% highest in country. (Look it up up if you want).
Chicago school system -- one of the worst in country.
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois.
And a most profound statement: Obama says he is going to 'fix' Washington politics?
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