Fewer volunteers in migrant suburbs

February 11, 2008

The study, by Ernest Healy, senior research fellow at the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, challenges the notion that ethnic diversity leads to a stronger, more cohesive society.

"When you create societies from mixed backgrounds it may not lead to overt violence … but to something scarier, a withdrawal from the civic sphere," Dr Healy said, "a feeling of less connectedness." ...

The findings appear to support research by Robert Puttnam, of Harvard University, that ethnic diversity can hasten a withdrawal from "collective life".

Dr Healy said the assumption multiculturalism would automatically lead to strong cohesive communities without government assistance may have been naive.

Sounds great up until the last line, which then implies that the natural policy conclusion is for government assistance. But isn't a more prudent policy to stop diversity altogether? The bigger your immigrant community, the bigger the disconnect.