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Has the melting pot curdled?

Bill Bishop of Austin, Texas argues in his new book, The Big Sort, that mobility and money have given Americans the freedom to move away from people they disagree with and closer to people that look, sound and think like them. It's not red states and blue states, it red enclaves and blue enclaves.

I'm not sure the country was ever that diverse, geographically speaking, and there seems to be plenty of evidence that anytime neighborhoods become too mixed, those with the means figure out a way to segregate themselves and regroup.

One role of the journalist is to walk between these worlds and to find the threads that link disparate neighborhoods together.

(via The Blockbuster Democracy Blog)