"And they remember intricately woven communities whose members made one another stronger."

I remember back in my youth in Pittsburgh, when those intricately woven communitities existed all over the city. There was the Italian community, and the Ukranian community, and the WASP community, and the Polish community, and the Black community, and the Jewish community, and more. They all had their own business districts, places of worship, and even their own organized crime. The order of the day was "Stay in your own fucking neighborhood with the rest of the (Insert derogative racial or ethnic term here.)" I don't think that we want to go back to that. Quit romanticizing the past. Think about what things were like for women and gay people back in the day.