Diagnosing a City´s Social Diversity: Jane Jacobs and The Wire’s Baltimore

Of Jane Jacobs’ four conditions for optimal diversity in the city, only the fourth deals with social diversity and it is exactly this condition that continues to spark criticism. To widen the perspective and obtain a comprehensive view of a city ́s social diversity it would be helpful to use a broad diagnostic tool like the Organizational Discourse Analysis Model from organizational studies. This model is used to diagnose social diversity in the city of Baltimore as portrayed in the television series The Wire. The perspectives of Jacobs and critics are plotted in the Model, showing what other perspectives are relevant for diagnosing a city ́s social diversity