This article kind of misses the point. That is, it seems to focus too much on the effect of dismantling the projects and moving people around, and not at all on why they got there. And it accepts at face value the proposition that these cities were moving those people out of the projects, sometimes out of city limits, for the purpose of improving their lives and in that way fighting poverty, crime, etc. I find it truly hard to believe that any city in the US would undergo that kind of effort to help out poor black people. The idea should strain anyone's credulity. More likely that more affluent white folks want to live in the city these days, and cities want that tax revenue. Sure, efforts were made in some cases to try to improve the lives of the people being displaced, but as an afterthought and not as the prime motivator. I mean, this demographic shift has been underway for a while now, where folks are leaving the suburbs and moving back to the cities, and property values are going up there, and generally life is improving in the cities. I can't tell if it's the intent, but this article almost seems to lay responsibility for all this on some changes to a federal housing program. It's nonsense. And the idea that mayors and city councils nationwide don't want to hear about the damaging effects of this displacement because it disproves their theories on poverty is certainly complete horseshit. They don't want to hear it because they've got their shiny new neighborhood, crime is down, and whatever happens in the suburbs they don't give a shit because it isn't their problem anymore. And regarding their theories on poverty, well they haven't got any of those. They're politicians, not sociologists. They have elections.

So what this article should have been about, but isn't, is why we still have so many poor black people committing so many crimes and taking up so much space in so many prisons, over 40 years since the civil rights movement, and in spite of the fact that most of America can apparently get its shit together enough to vote for a black man for President anyway.

The answer to that one is pretty straightforward, well known, and easy to understand. And it has little to nothing to do with race. America is simply not an egalitarian society. It never really has been, but over the past 30 years or so it's moved away from it faster than ever. The gap between rich and poor in America is remarkably high, and with that fact come all sorts of social ills (see below). And not just for the poor either, but quality of life tends to decrease across the board. The libertarian position that a rising tide will lift all boats, or that income distribution doesn't matter as long as average wage continues to increase, this idea that remains popular across the political spectrum in the US, and that is wholly within the sphere of consensus in the US media, does not pass scientific muster. It is absolute shit. And as Americans seem incapable of even discussing this simple fact yet, the problem of poverty and social dysfunction in America, among blacks as well as whites, et al, will remain unsolved.

http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/docs/social-dysfunction.pdf

http://www.cognitionandculture.net/index.php?option=com_cont...