“Intimate Strangers: Immigration to Queens” discusses a fascinating and puzzling paradox: while the borough of Queens is home to one of the most diverse immigrant population in the world, people rarely encounter and deal with a diversity of people within their personal lives. In other words, while a wide diversity of people occupy each other’s physical space, they do not occupy each other’s social space. The authors, Jones and Correa address immediately categorize this paradox as both widespread . In my opinion, this label is at best incomplete and at worst incorrect.

First off, both as a life long Queens resident and an objective reader, I can’t help but completely disagree with the authors’ assertion that the different ethnic populations of Queens do not interact with each other. The main problem with this argument is that the authors conflate geographical proximity with social proximity. They say that because ethnic groups live in distinct areas they do not interact socially with other ethnic groups. This idea is logically flawed. People’s social lives do not have to center around their homes, especially in an ever shrinking and technological world. Just because a person might live in a predominantly Afro-Caribbean area that does not mean that all the people they encounter in their workplace and social zones are Afro-Caribbean. Choice of residence can reflect a variety of cultural factors: dietary restrictions/ preferences, access to religious institutions, etc., but place of residence is by no means a fool proof indicator of the diversity of one’s social connections and preferences. Can geographic proximity predict social proximity? Possibly yes. But in this paper the authors do not make sufficient efforts  to clarify the connection between residence and social ties.

I do, however, find the authors proposal to initiate inter ethnic group contact and community involvement very interesting and effective. While at first it seemed strange that a groups  of strangers should be compelled to get to know each other seemed strange, it makes sense. The city is a big place, and its definitely possible to lose oneself within a small and limited group. The beauty of cities is that they connect not just people, but peoples ideas. If we want our city to succeed we need to create a nurturing environment for intellectual cross fertilization, and this starts by connecting people with one another.