Immigration is bad for society ... at first

My erstwhile colleagues in Bradford need to assimilate this research. Frankly, I was surprised at first (as an advocate of the benefits of diversity) but then thinking about the Bradford experience realised that it is probably right. First the bad news.

Put crudely, the more ethnically diverse the neighbourhood, the less likely you are to trust your local shopkeeper, regardless of his or her ethnicity. He warns that, however uncomfortable this conclusion might be, 'progressives can't stick their head in the sand'.
But the killer punch of his research is that diversity not only reduces social capital between ethnic groups but also within ethnic groups. Diversity leads not so much to bad race relations as to everyone becoming more isolated and less trustful. In the jargon, it kills off both the 'bridging capital' between different groups and 'bonding capital', which is the connections among people like yourself. Putnam calls it 'hunkering down' as people withdraw from all kinds of connectedness in their community.

Clearly, the worry is that this apparently scrupulous research could be seized upon and used by retrogressive political forces.So the bigger picture should be seen.

What makes Putnam nervous now is how this could be seized upon by rightwing politicians hostile to immigration. So he insists his research be seen in the context a) that ethnic diversity is increasing in all modern societies and is not only inevitable but is also desirable, a proven asset in terms of creativity and economic growth; and b) that "hunkering" can be short term and "successful immigrant societies create new forms of social solidarity".

And, actually, Bradford history offers hope on that score. German and Italian migration was a cause of tension in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but now you wouldn't know it. The difficulty will be to manage the processes well without stirring things up further. Perhaps education about the normal processes can help, like it can help to know the normal stages of bereavement. It wouldn't mean you could side-step going through the processes, but it would mean framing them so they are not so threatening and being able to work with them more productively.

I think I'd add a further framing: chaos /turbulence. It is the edge of turbulence where the productive, creative and life-giving things take place: new patterns are forged and growth can occur.
However, as often the case with these opinion pieces, the comments help flag up the caveats.
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Immigration is bad for society, but only until a new solidarity is forged: