The Anti-Poverty Case for “Smart” Gentrification, Part 1

This is a series by the Brookings Institute, the first part appears today. I will post links and excerpts to future articles in the series. Brookings is considered a "centrist" think-tank in Washington, D.C. Click title for link to article with informative graphics. Does any of this sound familiar?

Being poor is obviously bad, but being poor in a really poor neighborhood is even worse. The work of urban sociologists like Harvard’s Robert J. Sampson and New York University’s Patrick Sharkey highlights how persistent, concentrated neighborhood disadvantage has damaging effects on children that continue throughout a lifetime, often stifling upward mobility across generations. When a community experiences uniform and deep poverty, with most streets characterized by dilapidated housing, failing schools, teenage pregnancy and heavy unemployment, it appears to create a culture of despair that can permanently blight a young person’s future.