I have always had a  very hard time taking seriously any sort of state-by-state ranking on such completely subjective things as 'cohesiveness' or 'quality of life'. It is really BS disguised as science.

Try comparing quality of life in Nigeria with quality of life in the Netherlands. I assure you that you will find very real differences. The differences between US states are no less real, just smaller. Or are you really saying that there is no difference between California and Mississippi?

On several ocassions in the past I have been involved in this sort of thing, and they are typically done by using some sort of matrix scoring system to make it look objective, but in reality the way the various factors are weighted introduces the bias that was there from the very beginning. In other words, these things generally come up the way the people doing the ranking wanted them to come out before they went through the formal exercise.

So have I. One should expect some correlation between what we think we'll see and what our measurements say, else why make the measurements at all? This is what theory formation and hypothesis testing is all about. If you don't like the way things are measured, then go get your own measurements and present them for others to critique.

Social scientists labor under two problematic conditions --the inablity to conduct experiments and 'squishy' variables that are based on difficult-to-measure concepts. Yes, it's hard, and it's often wrong, but social scientists at least make the effort to apply, however imperfectly, the scientific method.  

I think the main flaw in a state-by-state ranking is inherent in the very idea that somehow a 'state' is something having the same level of reality as a  mountain range or a sea. People forgot that a state is really nothing more than an agreement by the general populace to govern the area inside these lines on a map seperately from the area inside those lines on a map. I think some people need to be reminded that you can't see any state boundary lines in a satellite photo of the US.

Yes, but collective agreements on governance are often more important to everyday life than something 'real' like a mountain range. Legal slavery, for instance, was an important distinction between US states before 1865, no? If you look here you can see that since 1945 alone political violence has killed an estimated 24,083,800 people worldwide. That's quite a lot for something that isn't real, isn't it?

In my view the main divide is between urban and rural. A resident of New York City and a resident of Chicago will generally have much more in common with each other then the New York City resident has with an upstate New York farmer or the Chicago resident has with a downstate Illinois farmer.

So, state-by-state is a very flawed way of looking at such things as cohesiveness or quality of life. At the risk of oversimplification, the single most important factor determining your quality of life is how much money you have, not which state you live in.

I agree on both points. Rural/Urban is probably the most important societal cleavage and that is always better to try to get as disaggregated data as possible. Unfortunatley, that is often very difficult to get. You have make do with what you have. Insofar that some states are more or less rural that will usually show in the statistics. However, in the map above, rural/urban doesn't seem to be a terribly great indicator of social cohesiveness. The Dakotas and the South are very rural, yet are on the extremes.

How did Putnam rank the states? What was his method?

Before the right-wing spin machine painted Howard Dean as a crazy liberal, the knock on him was always that he was a Republican in Democrats' clothing.

This must be from one of the statisticians destined to drown in that lake with the average depth of 1 meter..

I mentioned before, when I was working in NewOrleans last month, just how easy it was to just go up and talk to folks, you didn't feel like you had to 'merit' to make a little conversation, ask for directions, find out what's going on...  It reminded me of NY, which may look gruff to many, but can be very sociable and helpful on the personal level.  I think that some cities where you are on your feet a lot give you a lot of contact and break down that 'decent distance' barrier I feel in some other places.  Everybody is a little odd, or different.. it would take too much energy to worry about all of them being a 'threat'.. so you don't.

  Small towns can be warm and welcoming, but they can also be suspicious of 'outsiders' and 'the freaks', leaving folks out of the club, too.  I told a doctor I was at upon my return how great it felt to be able to just go up to people in N.O., and he said, "Unlike Maine, right?".. and I had to agree, in part.   Maine does have some very strong community bonds, family connections, and a sense that individuals should be capable and independent, but not with that sort of isolated 'pioneer' mentality that grew out west.  But you do have 'insiders and outsiders', there are definitely cliques and clubs that you do or don't belong to, and class, poverty, and resentment of outa-staters is not just a stereotype.  Education Disparity and some heavy Addiction also serve to keep us from cutting across old barriers, here.

  I want to look at how people across the political divide are building bridges and staying friends.  We've got that sort of ridiculous Blue/Red State thing, too, which gets countered with a 'shades of purple' states.. neither of which is really useful, in my mind.  I think we're constantly fed all this stuff which makes us see the differences, when we could make some progress finding the things we agree on, and get to work on them.  There is a little patch of Cobblestones atop our 'Munjoy Hill', right in the Middle of Congress St... here in Portland, with the last 30' of our old Trolley Rails, looking cute, and helping noone, sad to say.

  Maybe you can give me a link to one of your approp. articles again that I could keep handy as I talk with our Town Council about their Transit Planning.  I would love to see Hybrid Electric Buses (Electric-while-intown, etc), if not Rail-based transit helping to make Casco Bay more accessible without a car.

  We also have an historic Narrow Gauge Railroad that runs a few-thousand feet down by the Old Port, but the owner has tried to raise the possibility of expanding that into a neighborhood transit solution..  Don't know if it makes sense, but it could be a boon to tourism as well as commuting, if it worked out..

http://www.mngrr.org/

Regards,
Bob Fiske

I think the political bias (and the blatant ignorance of reality) is apparent.

Let's spin a story about why this may be instead of simply disregarding the results becasue we don't like them. Isn't that what folks here say others are doing in relation to Peak Oil?

I've read Putnam's "Making Democracy Work' -- which is basically how social capital aids democratic governance in Italy. Haven't read Bowling Alone so I don'tk now how he measured the concept in the US, but I'm familiar enough with his study of Italy to understand what moves his model.

Social capital is basically trust. Do you trust other people enough, for instance, to trade with them regularly? Do you trust them enough to rely solely on formal political institutions in order to guarantee your life or property? If you don't think this is important, see Iraq today or, closer to home, post-Katrina New Orleans.

So what factors increase societal trust? Off hand I can name four -- population size, social diversity, economic inequality, and horizontal versus vertical organization of civil society.

Very simply, small populations promote trust as it is easier to keep track of everyone and how you have interacted with them in the past. Once populations get too big the large number of non-personal relationships reduces your trust of other people because you, obviously, don't know them.

Diversity also reduces trust because of the insider-outsider mentality it brings. Members of other religions/racial/ethnic groups aren't 'like' you or members of your group so you don't necessarily trust them as much as members of your own group.

Economic inequality acts in the same way as societal diversity. The poor and the rich quite simply see themselves as different tribes. If you are rich it is easier to trust another rich person while if you are poor it is easer to trust another poor person. This problem is compounded if you don't have a middle class that in essence interacts with both, thereby serving as a go-between for the two.

Finally, the organization of civil society is important. If organization is 'horizontal' it cuts across the above cleavages and increases trust between members of very different groups. If civil society is vetical, it does not cut across group boundaries and, instead, reinforces them.

Now, why is the 'South' deficient of social capital in relation to the rset of the country? Very simple:

1. Relatively large populations.
   
2. Very racially diverse.
   
3. Lots of economic inequality.
   
4. Long history of 'separate but equal' racial animosity that kept groups apart. The Southern Baptists, for instance, was specifically formed to keep blacks out of white churches.

1. Relatively small populations.
   
2. Relatively homogenous in terms of ethno-racil makeup.
   
3. Relatively homogenous in terms of economic inequality.
   
4. Probably (as I don't know for sure) lots of organizations in civil society that cut across what divisions there are in Dakota -- Churches, for instance, include both the rich and the poor.

Is it political bias and ignorance of reality? Or is it the reality of the different outcomes arising from the politics in different states?

I don't know the answer but (I imagine) the survey would have been based on some methodology and should not just be dismissed before reflection.

One of the things such surveys are supposed to do is make a stop and examine our preconceptions. For sure, we need to check the validity of the evidence being put forward. However, I don't think we should just say, "This looks like bullshit served up by a politically biased agenda so I'll just trash it".

mixed-um, culture, neighborhoods, social capital tends to be basically, zero

That may be one of the things I love about New Orleans.  That is simply not true here.

Some points of trivia.

I spent much of the Sunday before Mardi Gras day watching parades with an evacuated resident.  Formerly a licensed practical nurse (she started as an orderly) at a now closed hospital, she did not have enough money for a hotel so she was sleeping in her car while "checking things out".  She found wages were now higher, so she could afford the higher rents.  She found a man renovating lightly flooded apartment (old mansion cut up) and he agreed to rent her a unit when it was finished in "June".  I told her what I knew of things coming back, especially hospitals (not good news).  We laughed and joked some as we scrambled for beads.

Her one luxury for the trip was a bottle of better quality bourbon.  She offered me some and gave me the bottle to pour my own (she has ice).  The last point is critical.  Usually someone will pour a stranger a finger or two, but keep control of the bottle so as to make sure not "too much".  But she trusted me enough to just give me the bottle.  Class & race are clearly recognized in New Orleans, but I have never found them to be a barrier to trust here.

Our one billionaire here often took public transit to work.  The 1923/24 built unair conditioned St. Charles streetcar.

I saw him board the streetcar a few times.  Twice, a young black man gave him his seat (such courtesy is not unknown here and it crosses racial & social lines).  What was striking both times was that they thanked him for his work for scholarships.  Unfortunately he died of a heart attack a year before Katrina.

I was once offered a chance to join Zulu, the premier black Mardi Gras Krewe,  I could not afford to then, but I was still honored.  Zulu & Rex, King of Carnival, are the only two Krewes to offically parade on Mardi Gras Day (about 35 krewes parade in the weeks before MG).  White members of Zulu (a distinct minority) are REQUIRED to dress in "Al Jolsen" black face while parading.  Optional for black members.

Our classic housing patterns are for grand mansions on the grand boulevards, middle class houses a couple blocks back and then working class neighborhoods.  In years past, all classes took the streetcar.  This may be one reason that streetcars are so beloved here.  I get a lot of 'social capital" for supporting & working to build more of them.

The close, linear housing patterns made for much more daily interaction.

In the early days after Katrina, O talekd with many people about the fitire of the city. All white residents, save one, wanted the city to be at least half black.  Some wanted less than 2/3rds but "at least half.  Let the criminals stay in Houston".  I can think of no other American city where the white population would wish for minority status.

Hagin won with, last analysis I heard, 79% of the black vote and 80% of the Republican vote.  An atypical coalition.  Landrieu was polling higher with black than white voters before the primary (26% vs 23% from memory).

The sobriquet for New Orleans is the "Big Easy".  This is a defining description of our society and the extremely widespread tolerance accross all sectors of the city.

At parties elsewhere, one of the first five questions seems to be "what do you do ?".  Here I can go an hour w/o that coming up.  Classifying and categorizing people is just not a priority here.  I still remember a Mardi Gras party in the  Quarter that spilled outside. I 'crashed" and ended up in a multi-hour, drunken conversation about the US constitutional system*.  Only at the end did I find out that she was a Tulane professor in the Political Science Dept. specializing in our courts.

*The starting point was that we were in sight of Gen. Jackson's statue on which Gen. "Beast" Butler had inscribed a slogan during the War Between the States.  He also authorized rape as a means on controlling the population of New Orleans.  Abe Lincoln let that pass, while imprisoning people (included elected representatives) at whim without any judical review.

I have spent too much time, need to do some real work now.

I don't think Inclusion depends on Exclusion, like some kind of equal and opposite reactions to one another.

Not equal and opposite reactions.  More like yin and yang.  One cannot exist without the other.  Without darkness, there can be no light.  Draw a circle, and what you exclude is as important as what you include.

I don't buy the "attending religious services" thing.  I'm sure a community could be built on that, but it's not necessary.

Both attributes will have greater value (and community trust) than a history of drinking beer together IMO.  Of cource, it is better to know someone from a bowling league than not know them at all.

I make an effort to help those in need of some help, be it major or very minor.  I have noticed over time, that other's have observed me and marked me as "a good guy".  New Orleans is one of the few cities where that attribute brings positive rewards "out of the blue".  Free JazzFest tickets as one recent example :-)  I did take 3 people without cars with me when I evacuated for Katrina.

I have no family here and no real roots here (although I like to point out that one of my ancestors was expelled from New Orleans in 1799 for being an American spy).  But I "fit in" because I "get" this unique city.

Still, family is NOT to be discounted when conditions are "in extremis".

Alan is focusing on small towns and how they operate, where everyone is usually quite similar and where religious attendance probably increases social capital and inter-personal trust precisely because everyone is relatively the same. The only social cleavage of note may simply be between rich and poor, conflict between which is smoothed over by mutual membership in a cross-cutting institution of civil society -- a church. Church membership increases social capital in this case because members of two differenct groups, rich and poor, interact with one another through it.

Make society a bit larger and more diverse, and now the role of religion becomes more problematic. Suppose we have the same town, but now with two faiths, Protestant and Catholic. Membership in Protestant or Catholic churches increases social capital between members of the rich and poor of the same faith, but the existence of multiple faiths may reduce social capital between members of different faiths unless other cross-cutting institutions of civil society exist -- such as non-demoniational professional organizations, labor unions, or even leisure or sports clubs. In many countries you don't have, for instance, a doctors' association or a lawyers' association you have a 'Muslim' lawyers' association or a 'Hindu' medical association. If you don't have the cross-cutting organizations in civil society then religion can be very detrimental to social cohesion -- look at India or Iraq.

Finally, add in more complexity by adding in other ethno-racial groups to the mix. Does religion foster cohesiveness and trust for the population as whole or make it worse? You can't say for sure because it is wholly dependent on the context of a given society. In the south, where whites and blacks were organized into largely separate religious institutions and no cross-cutting organizations, it is likely religion did not increase societal trust. Where religion cuts across social cleavages, it is likely it does foster societal trust and cohesiveness.