John Plodinec

Community Resilience and the Three American Tribes

February 6th, 2012 - John Plodinec  

I just ordered a copy of what may end up being a seminal study of America’s evolution – Coming Apart – by Charles Murray. I was alerted to this by an excellent editorial (America’s Two Tribes) in the New York Times by David Brooks that summarized Murray’s work.

First, a word of background. The growing divide between rich and poor has been a burr under my saddle for a while. My more liberal colleagues see something inherently evil in it. I don’t, particularly when the remedies proposed essentially amount to confiscation in the name of “Fairness.” However, I sensed that there was something unhealthy lurking behind the statistics. I had finally concluded that it wasn’t the disparity in incomes but rather the separation within the community that the disparity produced that was unhealthy. It wasn’t that the rich are evil and the poor the modern version of “Noble Savages,” but rather that the two were no longer communicating. And a community that is not communicating within itself is asking for nasty surprises – and is not very resilient.

Enter Murray. He portrays an America with a vast divide between the richer 20% and the poorer 30%. The richer typically live lives straight out of the ‘50’s (yes, kiddies, I remember the ‘50’s). Almost everyone in the 30-49 year old cohort works. Illegitimacy is rare (7%). Parents work too hard – at everything, including parenting.

The poorer live lives that are increasingly disconnected from the community. More and more are leaving the workforce, even in good times. Almost half of their children are illegitimate. To quote Brooks, they are “less likely to get married, less likely to go to church, less likely to be active in their communities, more likely to watch TV excessively, more likely to be obese.”

The one thing they both share is that they are unlikely to come into meaningful contact with each other. The richer live in quiet, clean, safe neighborhoods that reflect their essentially conservative values. The poorer live in noisy neighborhoods, where the trash may not be picked up, and they may not venture outside their doors too often out of fear. It is hard to become involved in community, or even personally productive, in these circumstances.

Brooks goes on to show how Murray’s work contradicts the myths of both the left and the right. I won’t go into that, but recommend it to you iconoclasts in this political season.

You may have noticed that I referred to three tribes in the title, not two. The reason, of course, is that both Murray and Brooks ignore the Third Tribe – the vast middle. Fearing a fall into the poorer, but dreaming of joining the richer, this tribe is the essential glue that must hold the other two together. But even here, we find disturbing trends. A recent study found that the rate of upward mobility is slowing down, and the number who go from the middle to the very rich is dwindling. Our educational systems are downplaying and in some cases eliminating the national and community mythologies that can bind a community together. As a nation, we are engaging in more “anti-social” – anti-community – behavior – too many activities that don’t involve direct interactions with others. And many of the Great Middle are turning inward because of unemployment or underemployment or wages that are lower than a decade ago, another toxic residue of the Great Recession.

Ultimately, money is neither the cause nor the solution to this splintering of communities; it merely facilitates the process. But how do we reverse the process?

I’m afraid there are no easy answers. However, I think we do know what victory looks like. It is a community in which even the poor feel a stake in its future. It is a community where everyone sees the entire community, the same community, both the good and the not so good. It is not a Community Triumphant smug in its righteousness, nor a Community Suffering with no confidence in its future, but rather a Community Militant that employs its strengths to shore up its weaknesses and to create a better future for all.

With that vision, there are several paths to take. Breaking down the barriers that retard social mobility are important. As the poor rise, they can bring the memories of what they’re escaping with them. As the rich fall, they can bring their work ethic and sense of community with them. Developing common myths – stories about the community that reinforce its uniqueness and its unity – are important. Fostering activities that all of the tribes will participate in is important. Encouraging the poorer to get involved in their neighborhoods, encouraging the richer to get outside their enclaves and to see the world through others’ eyes are important.

This splintering of America threatens to unravel the fabric of our communities. Murray (and Brooks) have performed a valuable service by holding up a mirror for us to see what we’re becoming. It is up to us to act on what we’ve seen.

John Plodinec

Demographic Trends and Community Resilience

January 10th, 2012 - John Plodinec  

Two weeks ago, the Brookings Institution released an interesting report on Five Things the Census Revealed about America in 2011. The authors were focused on America as a whole, but in the following, I’d like to look to look a little deeper at what their findings may mean for American communities.

Minorities are driving growth, and replenishing America’s youth. In the 1950’s, about one-fourth of our population growth was due to minorities (non-whites). On the 2000’s, almost all (92%) of our population growth was due to minorities, mainly Hispanics and Asians.

While non-whites in particular are driving population growth, the overall rate of growth is slowing. The nation’s population increased by about 10% from 2000 to 2010, the lowest rate of increase since the 1930’s. This reflected less immigration because of a poorer economy, and a lower birth rate because of an aging population. It’s as if everyone in Quebec, Ontario and the rest of the eastern half of Canada (about three-fourths of their population) moved to the US in just ten years. We clearly are continuing the process of becoming a “majority minority” country, just a bit more slowly than we have been.

The rate of growth of the population 45 and over is eighteen times that of those 45 and under. As one important result, only one in five households consist of a married couple with a child under 18.

The rate of migration continues its slow decrease. About 20% of us moved our homes in the ’50s and ’60s; in the last five years that dropped to just over 10%. Simply put, more and more Americans are staying home – with one major exception. We are seeing a “Reverse Migration” of the Black population to the South, as well.

The median household income declined the past decade for the first time on record, by about 9%. There was a concomitant increase in the poverty rate, to 15%. As we’ve seen so pointedly for New Orleans after Katrina, poverty is spreading from inner cities to the suburbs as is ethnic diversity.

Clearly, each of these trends will impact our communities, and each in a different way, depending on the community. However, there are a few generalizations worth noting.

• Communities’ responses to the diversification process will be telling indicators of their resilience. Some communities will not cope well; others will find strength in their increased diversity. Fortunately, there are models that are working (e.g., Anaheim) that others can emulate.

• Perhaps the greatest danger inherent in this diversification is that the community’s sense of itself may be dampened or destroyed. Without positive action, there is a real danger that a community may splinter based on race, language, age, or economic condition. If these become barriers to communication in a community, groups will tend to isolate themselves, and their members may have greater allegiance to their group than to the community as a whole. As a result, community resilience will suffer. It will be important for communities to develop inclusive “community mythologies” to prevent these barriers from forming. The reduced rate of migration may be a trend that counters this in many communities.

• Concentrated poverty is an extreme example of this isolation and an important one because poverty has a tremendous impact beyond just the poor. We’ve seen what happens in many big cities (e.g., Detroit) when poverty is concentrated in a neighborhood like plaque on a blood vessel. Crime and other anti-community activity increases. Those who can, leave – creating a potential death spiral for the neighborhood and a resource-sucking “Black Hole” for the larger community.

• While there will be greater diversity (based on ethnicity, age…) within communities, at the same time we are likely to see greater diversity among our communities in terms of their makeup, the specific challenges they face, and the resources they have available to deal with them. This implies that one-size-fits-all solutions from the federal government will be even less likely to work. Given the inertia in the federal system, this also means that communities are going to have to cope with their demographic changes largely on their own.

• As communities aim toward the future, they will have to consider whether the present mix of community services matches future needs. If the immigrant population in the community is growing, that may imply a need for more youth services, and for provision for those with little or no English. If the community is “graying,” this likely will mean the need for more services aimed toward the elderly. In areas of high unemployment, homelessness will impact not only those agencies that serve the poor, but education, and others as well. More resilient communities will meet these changing needs with solutions that include private business, non-profits and other essential service providers, as well as local governments.

• At the same time, local governments and other service providers will have to look at their services in a regional context. As we’ve seen so pointedly in metropolitan New Orleans, poverty has spread to the suburbs. For many communities, this means that they will have to look at themselves in a regional context more than ever before. Through effective coordination of service delivery among different organizations and jurisdictions, there is the potential for greater efficiency and greater resilience as well.

Many of our communities are already being impacted by these trends. These trends indicate many more will be. A community’s anticipation of what these trends portend for it, and its actions to positively respond, will perhaps be the best indicator of that community’s resilience.