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Huge disclaimer. This is how it was explained to me by my Indian host while I was working in India.

I remarked to someone basically the same thing - not only was it incredible that slums - corrugated-cardboard-house slums - sat right next to the 5 star hotel my company put me up in, but they were relatively safe.

One night we were walking through a slum because an Indian gentleman wanted to expound on my remark, and we came to a square that was decorated with lights and candles and flowers and all sorts of beautiful things. He said the people there had pooled their money, despite having so little. He then told me a lot had to do with the Hindu religion. Most Hindu's believed the position they were born into in life was the place in their spiritual journey they were meant to be, and doing well in that life was fundamental. It's a completely different way of looking at one's poverty.

He remarked that I wouldn't find the same type of sense of community in slums in Muslim parts of India, because their beliefs about their poverty and their lot in life was different.

I don't know if that's true, I didn't travel to any Muslim-dominated areas of India. It may have been true, it may have been his perception, but for that night, he was at least right about this local community, and it was a huge culture shock for a young man in his early 20s who had only seen slums in the US and, potentially more dangerous, Mexico City (and was warned to never, ever go there by my private corporate-sponsored driver).

>He remarked that I wouldn't find the same type of sense of community in slums in Muslim parts of India, because their beliefs about their poverty and their lot in life was different.

Keep in mind he's probably biased in some way here.

The comment opened with a "huge disclaimer" and closed with a long paragraph that show that s/he is aware of this.

I find that Hindu bit fascinating because it is presumably what allows so many people to coexist on so little space. However, it is also a very convenient belief for the people who are better off. Kind of like the meritocracy on speed.

I don't see the difference to capatalism (disclaimer: hardly looked). The believe that anything can be achieved when doing well enough is rather fundamental, because it's tautological. The modesty to currently accept the situation as limited by factors out of control is just a factor that can be controled.

By meritocracy I meant the American beliefthat everybody is responsible for their own success - but in turn also for not being successful. That seems to lead to less charity (judging from outside of the US). So Meritocracy might make you believe that poor people deserve to be poor, just like Hinduism might make you believe that poor people deserve to be poor. (Just pondering, I don't have deep knowledge of either cultures).

> why can't we have neighborhoods with multiple levels of housing options encouraging people with mixed incomes to be around each other

Because americans have spent the last 60+ years working to "solve" that problem.

May I present to you, the White Flight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

Yes, I'm aware of white flight. It's 2016 and the claim is that America has supposedly moved on, but it surely doesn't look like it. Or no one wants to talk about it since it's embarrassing.

Who claims that America has moved on from white flight? That seems like a far-fetched claim...

It started reversing in the 90's. These changes aren't instant. It will take time but it is happening.

It's not as tied to race anymore, though. Nonwhites are gentrifying neighbourhoods too.

And now you have the white influx that is once again displacing the poor ... and leading to homogeneous areas in the cities cores.

There are housing developments around the world which intentionally plan for social integration. So, as you said, the fortunate better understand the less fortunate, and the battlers understand how others educate and motivate themselves, etc. If you're always around those doing it tough, I imagine it can be hard to break habits and improve your lot.

I've previously worked with one group called Common Ground:

"The tenancy mix reflects an urban living community where half of the residents are people who have experienced homelessness and the rest being low income earners. This creates the opportunity for friendship, integration and the breakdown of social barriers."

More: http://www.commongroundadelaide.org.au/what-we-do/creating-a...

They have some case studies as examples of what they can achieve:

http://www.commongroundadelaide.org.au/stories/karens-story/

"If you don't live around people who are less fortunate than you, how can you understand their plight and their point of view?"

Great observation. I suspect the reason this viewpoint is less prevalent in the Western "OR" compared to the Eastern, "AND", styles of thinking.

I think this varies with western countries. As a Norwegian I could not fail to notice the extreme segregation of housing based on income and function in the US. You have very large areas in the US with housing which seems to fall within a very narrowly defined price range.

Now we don't have slums in the middle of wealthy areas in Norway (well we don't really have slums so that is another point), but middle class or working class and the rich can be living close to each other.

A strange thing about the US I find is that despite being so seemingly free wheeling capitalist where everything is supposed to go, it seems overly regulated and planned with respect to what sort of housing can go where. There are so many large homogenous clusters. You would expect a very free market to be far more chaotic in what gets built where.

I find this important as the argument in the US seems often be that people decide their own lot in life because in the US the market decides everything. Yet the outcomes seems far more political, and less meritocratic than one might assume.

Isn't that exactly how things are built in many of the larger US cities?

Luxury High rises are built in the middle of poor areas all the time. And all of the affordable housing city rules make it that something like 15-20% of new units in said high rise have to go to affordable housing, etc.

So you have a bunch of poor families who luck out and get to live in a million dollar 2 bedroom with free concierge service, which happen to be surrounded by homeless people.

With the exception of NYC (maybe to an extent SF) I can't think of any other city where people exclusively live in high rises or buildings.

Most cities have a small cluster of high rises downtown (usually commercial and a small number of residential buildings) and most people live in suburbs with single family homes. Unless I'm hallucinating, that's how I've seen in most US cities I've been to.