“Social diversity is both a condition—the fact that social groups with different characteristics share the same territory—and a process—the act of facilitating the cohabitation on a particular territory of groups that are diversified in terms of age, nationality, professional status, and income, in order to ensure a more balanced population distribution. Considered from the standpoint of either meaning, the concept is vague and subject to debate and controversy. It can be used profitably to justify major housing policy initiatives, yet at the same time stands accused of increasing social and ethnic segregation.”
“To this twofold character—an observable condition and a constructed process—one must add that of semantic uncertainty: the words diversity, mixing, intermingling and so on are often used interchangeably. These terms are often close in meaning, but they take on specific connotations depending on the context in which they are used. Moreover, the very idea of diversity understood as a process—that is, incentivizing or mandating cohabitation—rests upon two major uncertainties: the scale on which it is to occur (a stairwell or a metropolis?) and, in particular, the criteria which are to be used (income level, nationality, age, purported membership in ethnic or religious groups, etc.).”
Dph source: http://base.d-p-h.info/fr/fiches/dph/fiche-dph-7296.html
File translated by Michael C. Behrent – Assistant Professor – Department of History – Appalachian State University – Boone, NC 28608