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You are referring to Schelling's model, and the threshold he found for segregation wasn't 1/3 but 2/3 'wrong', i.e. that everyone prefer not to be in a minority
by topynate 4y ago
You are referring to Schelling's model, and the threshold he found for segregation wasn't 1/3 but 2/3 'wrong', i.e. that everyone prefer not to be in a minority of less than 1/3. This was just was striking about it – that even if every individual is happy with being in a minority, the population can still segregate. I'm not aware that he ever referred to the degree of preference in his model as 'mild', or small. It's relatively small, compared to what you might otherwise expect – I think most people would have guessed that it took a preference of 1/2 to produce self-segregation.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoI think my point still stands. People will move for one reason only, when they are in a 1/3 minority or smaller, and when they move they will only move to a place where they are not in such a minority, which alters the balance for the other people living there causing the chain reaction. It's a neat mathmatical toy, but when you spell out what it's doing it's tautological and obvious, which is cool for maths, less so for social policy.