Concentrated poverty is a consequence of discrimination in the housing and job markets, especially the exclusion of African-Americans from the better neighborhoods and jobs. But very little is being done by the government at any level to enforce fair employment and housing laws.WM: While discrimination in jobs and housing are factors, if you look at how cities grow, you will see that poverty is always concentrated. So while our particular stupidity may be race, class and caste are used as often, if not oftener. Who in India lives their lives in the streets of Benares or Delhi? Untouchables, a caste distinction. Who in London live in the East End? Poor, largely white people. It isn't even a function of capitalism, though it's very helpful to capitalism.
The plan to "deconcentrate poverty" on the Near North side that was legitimized by the Hollman Consent decree is, in reality, a gentrification project which harmed the people it was supposed to help. About 900 dwelling units were destroyed, which produced an alarming increase in the number of poor African-American families taken into homeless shelters in Minneapolis.WM: I think that deconcentrate poverty and gentrify are synonymous in this case. Having lived in a project which was comprised of the same style buildings as those on the Northside, even with ones better built than those on the Northside, I can say with confidence that they were not worth saving. If the city had opted for fitting new houses among the already built, it could not satisfy the Hollman Decree since the vacant lots and boarded houses were/are in poorer neighborhoods. Had the money been used to buy down the cost of housing as for sale signs went up, the concentration of poverty in certain neighborhoods might have gone down, but the city's percentage of poverty would not have changed. The second goal of then mayor SSBelton was to export some poverty to the burbs, which, for the most part, are not as income diverse as they could be.
This is not being done because it would not be very profitable for private developers to do this.WM: There was a time, preceding the NRP, when we could not cajole private developers, even with subsidies, to build in either Phillips or Central. I would imagine the same was true for sections of the Northside. Using most of our NRP money for housing has changed that to a certain extent in Central, but the huge influx of Latinos has done an equal amount to change that paradigm.
It is possible to deconcentrate poverty in the poorest neighborhoods, and at the same time increase the supply of "affordable housing" in the poorest neighborhoods and citywide. But that's not happening because the politicians in this city are owned by people who have an interest in preserving the status quo. That's why there is no interest in aggressively enforcing fair employment and housing laws and making all of the public schools good schools.
WM: I would argue that the politicians who get elected are largely people who hear their constituents saying they don't want the status quo to change and those politicians are equally "owned" by those constituents. Voters have to take some responsibility. Those who do not vote have to take some responsibility as well.
WizardMarks, Central
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