Even if we accept that as the primary cause (which I don't) that would mean cowardice and racism are the root cause. An irrational fear of people who don't look and talk like us.
> Things like Elks Lodges went into long term decline when women and blacks had to be admitted.
People don't need institutionalized racism and misogyny to make friends. They already have a right to be racist and privately associate / not associate.
Sorry i find this whole line of reasoning absolutely asinine
The municipal pools where i live are well maintained and extremely popular
Nothing you're saying has anything to do with desegregation and you've shown nothing to back up the shit you're pulling from your ass
The reality is that the groups are distinct, and immediately changes the dynamic from "a facility used and maintained by the group who established it", to "a facility maintained by a third party, to be shared". These do not have equal value to an individual.
There is this knee jerk wish to constantly make that dynamic into something nicer or "normal outside of racist interactions". But, it is not. The same effect does not happen when two groups just merge.
I live in place where this is still true. The rec centers are barely solvent and it's mostly retirees and summer camps (cheap daycare) that keeps them afloat.
All of that is still true of everywhere I have lived in the US, except for the free ambulances. And I think the cost of ambulances has more to do with the evolution of health insurance in the US than desegregation.
The fact that in America health insurance is often part of worker compensation, meant that cities could transfer the cost of ambulances from taxes to insurance premiums.
Unfortunately in reality there is a huge difference between a facility used by one group, and one shared between several. Many community facilities become unpleasant when they are anonymous.
What it really is is that some minorities have shittier cultures than others, and some states have handled the integration and assimilation better than others.
Even the USA, for example, is blessed that nearly all of our illegals are Catholics (or more recently evangelical protestants...). Compare this to Europe where it's often muslims who try to bring their Burkas and sharia law with them.
The mass rise of latino voters for trump indicates a very strong effort from America's latino minorities to "act white", to "integrate", and to "assimilate".
I am fine with a multicultural society, as long as it's good culture - and yes, it is quite easy to nearly objectively quantify if a culture or cultural practice is good or not. For example, Americans except for asian americans don't wash their asses with bidets after using the toilet. This leads to swampass/BO, increased toilet paper usage/resource consumption, and far more rectal related health problems. America objectively should change it's cultural practices around bathroom usage.
Unfortunately, cultural critique against bad culture has a tendency for folks to call you "racist", so we aren't allowed to have this conversations with more specificity...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
The reality is that the sheep voted for the wolves - mostly because the sheep hate the other sheep, and wanted the wolves to eat those other sheep - hoping they'd ignore themselves.
The only group who voted more for Harris than biden, demographically, was white women - specifically old white women.
This is very different from multicultural meaning groups having separate communities. That is de facto segregation.
" Compare this to Europe where it's often muslims who try to bring their Burkas and sharia law with them."
I think this is much exaggerated.
Its also not immigrant groups pushing Islamic fundamentalism as much as international funding and ideology that is global.
There are also groups (mostly white people!) who are politically committed to this multiculturalism vs integration.
Immigration is only relevant if immigrant communities do not integrate. If it was the cause then you would expect a strong correlation between loneliness and populations of immigrant origin. It certainly does not leap out from a quick look at the numbers: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbein...
The timing of the numbers in the paper do not match either. SOme of them happened in the last two years. A bit recent for desegregation to be a factor.
On the other hand the article does mention a lot of far more plausible possible causes: online only friendships, working hours, decline of religion etc.