The Atlantic is confused when social pathologies follow poor people to new neighborhoods.
In this article, Hanna Rosin tells a sad story of unintended consequences: the dismantling of “the projects” in favor of dispersal and integration has brought crime to middle-class neighborhoods. In the liberal Weltanschauung, such an outcome is “surprising” (their word), one can guess because liberal doctrine stipulates that social pathologies are a result of social conditions. Take the pauper out of ghetto and send them to middle-class schools, and they will become middle-class, or so liberals have thought since Thomas More, if not before. A broad swath of conservatives disagree, anticipating this entirely predictable result. That race is a correlate of this phenomenon makes a sane discussion extremely difficult.
That this dilemma is a social tragedy cannot be denied. I am reminded of the tragedy of the American Indians. The unfolding of the American tapestry on this continent necessarily triggered the disruption and destruction of the native way of life. The panoply of treatments for the “Indian problem” included genocide, apartheid, integration, sovereignty, segregation, and, most recently, gaming (?!). I wonder if there is a “gaming” solution to America’s “original sin” of slavery. Until then, this story may not have a happy ending.