Putting aside the somewhat-broken concept of homophily, it's hard to ignore that birds of a feather *do* sometimes flock together. But homophily is this nasty shortcut that says it's normal, natural, or comfortable. Fact is, we *do* have a habit of sticking with people who look/act/think like us, but that's the byproduct of so many compl…
Putting aside the somewhat-broken concept of homophily, it's hard to ignore that birds of a feather *do* sometimes flock together. But homophily is this nasty shortcut that says it's normal, natural, or comfortable. Fact is, we *do* have a habit of sticking with people who look/act/think like us, but that's the byproduct of so many complicated factors — class, legacies of racism, redlining/zoning, white flight/suburbanization, etc etc. None of that is *natural.* (Also, some of it is just demographics.)
Putting aside the somewhat-broken concept of homophily, it's hard to ignore that birds of a feather *do* sometimes flock together. But homophily is this nasty shortcut that says it's normal, natural, or comfortable. Fact is, we *do* have a habit of sticking with people who look/act/think like us, but that's the byproduct of so many complicated factors — class, legacies of racism, redlining/zoning, white flight/suburbanization, etc etc. None of that is *natural.* (Also, some of it is just demographics.)