Our Zip Codes, Ourselves - Seth Kaplan on the Fragile State of American Neighborhoods

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2024

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Seth Kaplan has worked in developing nations throughout the world, studying how corrupt governments, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of public trust can add up to what’s known as a “fragile state.” In his new book "Fragile Neighborhoods," he explores how these same dynamics can play out on a regional level in the United States.

Reporting from struggling rural areas as well as poor urban neighborhoods across America, Seth discovered that people separated by even just a few miles can have not only dramatically different life experiences but vastly different life expectancies. The culmination of these factors is captured by the concept of "social fabric."

In this conversation, Seth explains how he defines social fabric and describes what kinds of initiatives have the most success at bringing communities together and lifting people out of poverty and why gentrification, when done thoughtfully, can be integral to positive change. He also addresses the question of why cities on the West Coast seem far more prone to unrest, concentrated homelessness, and distrust of institutions than their East Coast counterparts. Finally, Seth shares his personal talks about what he looked for in a neighborhood when he moved his own family from New York City to another state.

GUEST BIO

Seth D. Kaplan is a leading expert on fragile states. He is a Professorial Lecturer in the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Adviser for the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), and consultant to multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, U.S. State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, and OECD as well as developing country governments and NGOs.

Visit his website.

Get his book here.

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HOUSEKEEPING

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Transcript

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0:00.0	If you're thinking that what we really want to do is eliminate poor neighborhoods, we want to make poor neighborhoods, mixed income or middle class neighborhoods, you by definition, if you're trying to uplift a place and make a place better for people living there, you need some gentrification or that's not going to happen.
0:23.1	Otherwise, you're basically saying that place is poor and ought to always be poor.
0:30.3	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast.
0:32.3	I'm your host, Megan Dom.
0:34.3	Before I introduce this week's guest, Seth Kaplan, some quick announcements. As I mentioned
0:40.2	last week, I've announced some more retreats for the unspeakeasy. So this year, we will be in a number
0:47.0	of cities, Austin, Los Angeles, Louisville, Kentucky, Seattle, Toronto, and Woodstock, New York.
0:56.8	If you are a member of the online community,
1:02.9	we'll also be doing some community retreats in places that we're not going to announce publicly,
1:30.5	but we'll be just for you guys. And yeah, speaking of guys, I am working on it. I am working on a possible co-ed retreat. So bear with me on that. And in the meantime, if you are a non-guy and you want to get in on the unspeak-easy, go to the unspeak-easy.com. Also, I will be doing a literary event talking about my book, The Unspeakable,
1:37.4	which was a book that came out in 2014, and this podcast is named after it. I'll be talking about that and, you know, other stuff having to do with writing in Austin, Texas on February
1:42.7	29th. And that is an event put on by Moon Tower Minion.
1:48.0	So you can find out about that on my substack page or go to Moontowerminion.com.
1:56.4	Okay, this week, I'm talking with Seth Kaplan.
1:59.6	Seth has worked throughout the world, especially
2:01.8	in developing nations, and is an expert on what's known as fragile states, which, as he'll
2:07.8	explain, has to do with regions that are held together only precariously, thanks to corrupt
2:14.1	government, weak infrastructure, and overall lack of public trust. In his new book,
2:20.1	Fragile Neighborhoods, Seth looks at the way this precarity plays out in certain regions of the
2:25.3	United States and explores how and why people living just a few miles from one another can have
2:31.3	entirely different life experiences and even different life
2:35.0	expectancies by a lot because of the social fabric of their neighborhoods. And he'll define what he
	...

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