on the uses of diversity*

When I first took a good look at some of the restaurants and shops on the street where I work (Walnut Street between Broad & 19th), I was concerned that this area was just going to be super ritzy: Burberry, Coach, Le Bec Fin, Occitane, Williams Sonoma, the Bellevue… I was afraid I’d feel frumpy and ugly walking around (as I do in Manhattan), because everyone is better groomed and dressed than me. However, as I have spent more and more time in this area, I have been able to see its diversity. This area may have its disproportionate share of overpriced bags and designer shoes, and may be residentially expensive and exclusive, but it also manages to be very diverse.

Take for instance, on a sunny day, Rittenhouse Square is brimming with people: students picnicking on the grass, mothers from the neighborhood and their children, fancily dressed women walking their dogs, old married couples taking walks, suburbanites who work in the city eating lunch, homeless men sitting on a bench, construction workers and bike messengers sitting on the railings and talking, an artist painting the park from the sidewalk… I have grown to love this park because it is so diverse- it is almost possible to see a snapshot of the entire city within the park and it is hard to feel like you don’t belong there because everyone is so different.

As Philadelphia grows to become “the next great city”, I don’t want more Upper East Sides and Midtowns appearing in the city—I want the diversity of Rittenhouse Square to extend residentially throughout the city, where neighborhoods can be mixed, instead of segregated. While it is good to retain the cultural characteristics of different neighborhoods, we need to resist the desire to displace the poor into housing projects and run-down neighborhoods, where their problems are exacerbated. How do we balance that with the market forces that come into play in the city? (I feel like I am watching my neighborhood gentrify by the day). I wish I knew…

A friend recently noted that there were middle dividers appearing in many of the benches in Rittenhouse Square. These dividers are generally designed to keep the homeless from sleeping on them. This saddens me as it is one step that the city is taking to exclude the homeless from the park (reminding me of the way Penn shuttles away the homeless when parents tend to visit campus)—to the detriment of the homeless, as they are shuttled off to temporary shelters and excluded from part of city life that they may very well enjoy, but also to the detriment of the rest of us, who may wish to hide conveniently away from dismal problems that our city has.

Promoting diversity in city use helps mitigate some of the problems of the city. When rich and poor can live alongside each other, safety is improved, as it is much more difficult for an area to be overrun by drugs, violence and prostitution. It also enables the poor to access the resources of their better-off neighbours and lessens damaging mindsets that crop up in lower-income only neighbourhoods (e.g. early pregnancies). And for the rich, it promotes awareness, understanding, learning, and hopefully friendships with people who are different from us.

All us college educated liberals love to tout the benefits of diversity and love to claim it for ourselves in the form of minority friends, gay friends and international travel. But how many of us are actually willing to engage in a friendship with someone from a housing project or a homeless man, without condescension, judgment or fear?


*Much of this entry has been prompted by my current reading of Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities, which has helped me see the city with fresh eyes. Written in the 1960s or 1970s, Jacobs launches a spirited critique of planned “garden cities”, pointing to the abject failure of housing projects and planned developments. Jacobs writes extensively on New York and Philadelphia and praises Rittenhouse Square highly for its diversity and variety.
** Can you believe it? I wrote an entry without quoting from another book or article!