Ethnic neighborhoods can shelter inhabitants from ever learning to navigate strangers

Evidence

But how does the individual learn to gauge his own abilities without risk? And how does he even develop them without going to new places where he may feel uncomfortable? The answer seems to be that he does not, and this is perhaps one of the greatest ironies of city living. … In doing so, however, one increases one’s vulnerability to disorganization in the face of change. Or, one can take risks, rushing headlong into new places, new people, and new situations, thereby increasing one’s self-knowledge and one’s skills and, in the long run, finding the city not to be risky at all (see Chapter Eight). — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 638 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The poor are approximately in the situation of the stranger to the group who finds himself, so to speak, materially outside the group in which he resides. But precisely in this case a large total structure emerges which comprises the autochthonous parts of the group as well as the stranger; and the peculiar interactions between them create the group in a wider sense and characterize the true historical circle. Thus the poor are located in a way outside the group; but this is no more than a peculiar mode of interaction which binds them into a unity with the whole in its widest sense. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 417 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Living surrounded by strangers is a peculiar condition requiring explanation; The skill urbanites develop for public navigation is deployed defensively to avoid others; Urban competence develops only through exposure to risky new places — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 638 (+3 more)

Related

• Urban spatial literacy varies enormously across individual mental locational maps (similarity 0.83)
• Urban dwellers evolve from fearing strangers to managing them easily (similarity 0.82)
• City-raised people may navigate urban spaces more skillfully than newcomers (similarity 0.82)
• Utopian urban plans fail without social psychological realism about people (similarity 0.82)
• Urban strangers can avoid situational incompetence by avoidance and instruction. (similarity 0.82)
• Urban life fundamentally means coping with strangers and anonymity (similarity 0.81)
• Urban competence rests on reading strangers’ appearances, locations, and behaviors (similarity 0.81)
• Urban spatial ordering only enables stranger identification, never guarantees it (similarity 0.80)
• Living surrounded by strangers is a peculiar condition requiring explanation (similarity 0.80)
• The skill urbanites develop for public navigation is deployed defensively to avoid others (similarity 0.80)
• Urban meanings are taught from birth as coded instructions. (similarity 0.80)
• City order makes strangers identifiable enough to be tolerated (similarity 0.80)
• Urban life is possible because strangers remain categorically identifiable (similarity 0.80)
• Urban competence develops only through exposure to risky new places (similarity 0.80)
• The hardest part of urban adventuring is the initial step into public space (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Urban competence develops only through exposure to risky new places #complicates (0.70) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 638
• Jumbled urban space forced preindustrial dwellers to confront social diversity daily #contradicts (0.65)
• The poor resemble strangers in being both outside and constitutive of the group #expands (0.45) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 417