Spokane’s Diversity Hotspots: Central Division

   When the house we lived in was sold out from under us, one of my former roommates moved into an apartment complex filled with refugees. It's a cheap place to live, near Spokane's center of strip-mall commerce and on undesirable land, but it's the only apartment complex in the immediate area, which decreases the amount of crime it can support. And that makes it perfect for refugee resettlement agencies! It is home to six Nepali families, four Iraqi families, two Burmese families, at least three American families, and its manager is a Russian immigrant. If you stop by during the summer, you will see children of all origins playing in the parking lot, whether that be shooting hoops or kicking a ball around.

   My friend is very popular among the refugee children, and they frequently stop by to do homework in his apartment, or otherwise harass him.

   You'll find that diversity is most common at a certain socioeconomic level. As an area's level rises, diversity drops; it also drops as an area's socioeconomic level falls beyond a certain point. This is hardly a desirable state of affairs—diversity is always beneficial, both ethnic diversity and socioeconomic diversity, because it can introduce us to the way that other people live and to the specific array of needs and difficulties they have. This awareness helps us care more deeply for our neighbors, as we have been commanded by God to do.

–J.R.