Berger’s mosaic theory is an exceptionally fitting way to look at New York City’s population. You have many pieces of different shapes and colors, coming together to form a beautiful, diverse, and complete whole. New York’s mosaic is dynamic, with different pieces changing shape, size and color continually, as Joe Salvo’s maps showed us back in January. In The World in a City, very appropriately titled considering what Joseph Berger discusses, goes into an analysis of Ditmas Park, a diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn. In it live people of all races, cultures and socioeconomic classes, and yet the area is close-knit and friendly, for lack of a better word.
Neighbors treat each other well, and interracial friendships are very common. It appears that Ditmas Park is a true melting pot of cultures. However, upon closer examination, it becomes evident that this isn’t so. Sure you can find followers of all religions celebrating the same religious holiday as a community, and a national holiday can be celebrated by a whole street, a family inviting everyone over for a celebration, but where racial differences don’t matter in Ditmas Park, variance in socioeconomic standing does. Those who rent apartments tend to associate with others who do the same, and those who have the money to buy their own homes spend more time with others in their social class. If you were to survey inhabitants of the neighborhood regarding the validity of this observation, you wouldn’t get unanimous agreement, but it is those of higher economic standing who tend not to notice this trend, as expected. Fortunately, this doesn’t take away from the phenomenality of the cultural and racial mixing that has occurred as representative members of the surrounding neighborhoods, such as Borough Park, East Flatbush and Midwood, have moved into and carved out a small community that has possibly become the most culturally diverse neighborhood of Brooklyn, and perhaps of New York City.
