Anonymous wrote:
Now we can talk honestly about substantially increasing the "carrot" to offset those market pressures. What would that look like? I'm not talking about some airy construct like "improve the schools". I'm talking about tangible actions--with costs. And what if we improved the schools and the population of the very poor still fell against the city population as a whole? After all, the city population is growing steadily, which means the denominator is growing. Should we increase social spending in order to bump those numbers back up? After all, you've already conceded that decreasing services and raising the cost of living will make "other jurisdictions become more attractive". Should we bump up our social spending to better retain our poor residents and better attract poor people from MD and VA and elsewhere in order to keep DC's current socioeconomic profile static?

Since the topic of "improving the schools' requires a lot more discussion than I am prepared to do in this medium, you are going to have to live with "improving the schools" as an idea for improving the lives of poor people. The city didn't just magically become more attractive to affluent folks. It became that way because the government actively pursued policies to increase the attractiveness of the city to that demographic. When rising costs associated with those improvements negatively impacted less affluent residents, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that there was a backlash. Neither should it be a surprise when cynical politicians harness the resentment associated with that backlash for their own benefit. Embracing a policy of reducing poverty through the encouragement of the poor to leave the city will only increase that backlash and strengthen those politicians.

Just as the government pursued policies to attract affluent residents, it should adopt policies that allow the less advantaged to benefit from the city's growth. In the area of education, high-quality pre-k has become a fought-over privilege of the well-to-do. But, that is the type of program that is nearly priceless to a poor single mother who would like to be able to have a job. High-quality daycare and early education should be programs that progressives support just as strongly as bike lanes. Similarly, improved access to healthcare is another area that can benefit the poor. If collocating those services with schools makes sense, than it should be tried. As another poster has illustrated, job training is an important service that can also be combined with schools. During the campaign, Paul Zukerberg made a legitimate argument that far too many lives are ruined because of a pot bust. Maybe the city should look at decriminalization or simply stop enforcing the marijuana laws. The city could incentivize making healthier foods available at affordable prices. There are a number of things that could be done.

But, an important change is a change in perception. The poor shouldn't be perceived as a problem. Rather, the challenges faced by the poor such as unemployment, poor health, poor education, crime, etc. are the problems. And, those are not just the problems of the poor. Because, as long as such problems exist, there will be resentment and that resentment is oxygen for those politicians who will cynically exploit it. Hence those are problems for anyone who rejects such politicians. We need to deprive those politicians of their oxygen.

Finally, I am painting with a very broad brush here. A lot of what I think we should be doing pertains not only to the poor, but simply the lower middle class. But, I'm trying not to write an encyclopedia.

Let's say people move for two reasons -- because they have to or because they want to.

Some poor folks in DC might like living here because they have friends and family here and will only leave if they have to -- because rents go up and they can't afford to stay in the neighborhood.

Or some might want to move because they get a better job out of town or have other family they want to live near -- you know, just like non-poor people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are plenty of more-affordable communities than DC, with jobs and good schools all throughout the Mid-Atlantic. But rather than seeking out those locales and a prospect of self-sufficiency, it's evident that many prefer to rely on the social safety net, it's DC policies there, (for example welfare-for-life) along with culture, choices and values that keeps the poor concentrated in DC. It's not lack of opportunity.

Untrue. There are costs associated with moving.

Not really, unless your idea of "poor" is someone a lot more affluent and with more belongings than I had was when I was poor. For me, "moving costs" constituted a bus ticket, a few bucks for living expenses til I got situated, and a couple of duffle bags to haul my belongings. So again, I don't really buy the arguments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You've just explained in a nutshell why DCPS is going to suck as a school system until gentrification progresses much further than it already has. Unemployment among young people in DC is around 50% because we've pursued policies that ensure the poorest of the region's poor must live in the District. Fortunately that is changing. Hopefully in 5 years from now, unemployment among DC's young people will be around 20%. And MD's (and VA's) will be similar.

So long as the purpose of all of the District's institutions is to remediate regional poverty, those institutions are going to suck at what they're nominally supposed to be doing.

Say, I know what would fix that. Here's what we do, we find some land that no one wants to live on, set up some villages and towns, and move the poor out there - you know, kind of like a special place that's reserved just for them. That way, we don't have to accommodate their needs in the District and they can get special help and live only among their own. It worked with the Cherokee in 1831. Why not the poor in 2013? They'd get exercise too if we made them march out there!

You know what they say about people being too dumb to learn from history....

Here's a better idea: DC gives poor residents a monthly stipend to live wherever they like. Say $1500 per month per family. And counseling to find the best house for their money, in the best possible school district. In six months 90% of DC's poor would be living in MD and VA.

There is a powerful coalition that benefits from the current system of apartheid: suburbanites, DC politicians, etc... Not so good for the families, though.

You realize this could never work because once you leave DC you're no longer a resident, right? Or is this satire?

It's the way things effectively work now. Poor folks get housing vouchers, they move to the suburbs, they have better outcomes.

In any case, it was in response to a suggestion that we create reservations, so obviously it's not a politically realizable goal. Still, it's effectively what has been happening for the last decade, and what will continue to happen: public housing projects torn down, people given vouchers, people (quite rationally) choosing to move out of the city.

Like poor transportation options, limited job opportunities, less community resources and family support. Great idea. Hope this is satire.

You hear this a lot, but why would a poor family in Montgomery County have less access to community resources than one in DC? The bus & transit options in a place like Wheaton or Silver Spring are every bit as good as those in DC. Potentially better given the comparative wealth of MD / Montgomery County. Also, the idea that MoCo has limited job opportunities when compared to SE DC is laughable on its face.

That's a straw man argument, and I'm pretty sure you know it. The "stick" as you term it is nothing of the sort. First, we're not decreasing services in DC. They've never been funded at a higher level. That takes us to the somewhat weasel-y construct "raising the cost of living". Who is this mysterious baddie who is wielding the "stick" by manipulating prices in the city (Maybe the same evil forces that hatched The Plan). You and I both know that's nonsense.

The dynamic is twofold: first the city is increasingly attractive to middle class people. That has two effects: first the price of many things in the city is driven up. This is an inevitable byproduct of the desireability of living here. No one is waving a stick. It's pure market forces.

Now we can talk honestly about substantially increasing the "carrot" to offset those market pressures. What would that look like? I'm not talking about some airy construct like "improve the schools". I'm talking about tangible actions--with costs. And what if we improved the schools and the population of the very poor still fell against the city population as a whole? After all, the city population is growing steadily, which means the denominator is growing. Should we increase social spending in order to bump those numbers back up? After all, you've already conceded that decreasing services and raising the cost of living will make "other jurisdictions become more attractive". Should we bump up our social spending to better retain our poor residents and better attract poor people from MD and VA and elsewhere in order to keep DC's current socioeconomic profile static?

I'm all for bleeding heart solutions--bleeding head solutions not so much.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You've just explained in a nutshell why DCPS is going to suck as a school system until gentrification progresses much further than it already has. Unemployment among young people in DC is around 50% because we've pursued policies that ensure the poorest of the region's poor must live in the District. Fortunately that is changing. Hopefully in 5 years from now, unemployment among DC's young people will be around 20%. And MD's (and VA's) will be similar.

So long as the purpose of all of the District's institutions is to remediate regional poverty, those institutions are going to suck at what they're nominally supposed to be doing.

Say, I know what would fix that. Here's what we do, we find some land that no one wants to live on, set up some villages and towns, and move the poor out there - you know, kind of like a special place that's reserved just for them. That way, we don't have to accommodate their needs in the District and they can get special help and live only among their own. It worked with the Cherokee in 1831. Why not the poor in 2013? They'd get exercise too if we made them march out there!

You know what they say about people being too dumb to learn from history....

Here's a better idea: DC gives poor residents a monthly stipend to live wherever they like. Say $1500 per month per family. And counseling to find the best house for their money, in the best possible school district. In six months 90% of DC's poor would be living in MD and VA.

There is a powerful coalition that benefits from the current system of apartheid: suburbanites, DC politicians, etc... Not so good for the families, though.

You realize this could never work because once you leave DC you're no longer a resident, right? Or is this satire?

It's the way things effectively work now. Poor folks get housing vouchers, they move to the suburbs, they have better outcomes.

In any case, it was in response to a suggestion that we create reservations, so obviously it's not a politically realizable goal. Still, it's effectively what has been happening for the last decade, and what will continue to happen: public housing projects torn down, people given vouchers, people (quite rationally) choosing to move out of the city.

Like poor transportation options, limited job opportunities, less community resources and family support. Great idea. Hope this is satire.

Anonymous wrote:
I always find it interesting that when middle-class folks move to the suburbs from the inner city, it's "the American Dream" but when poor folks move from the inner city to the suburbs, it's "The Plan" and "cultural genocide".

As I said before, let's do a thought experiment: give a poor family $2000 a month to spend on housing in the DC area. Anyone who thinks that, at the end of a year they'll be living in a two bedroom apartment in a shitty school district is deluding themselves. They'll be in the burbs living in a three bedroom house in a decent school district.

Who are the two groups who are so desperate not to see this happen? Classist and racist suburbanites who want to maintain the current system of apartheid on the one hand, and politicians who rely on a large pool of poor votes to maintain their access to the levers of power on the other.

Sure as hell doesn't benefit the poor folks. And the fact that a few bleeding hearts can manage to say "fix the schools" is not helping them out either.

Clearly there is no support for using what might be termed the "carrot" method of bribing the poor to leave. So, that leaves the "stick" of decreasing services and raising the cost of living so that other jurisdictions become more attractive. Of course, the "bleeding heart" solution of improving the schools might stop the flow of upwardly mobile poor people leaving the city. Face with this reality, I'm comfortable with the bleeding heart solution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Here's a better idea: DC gives poor residents a monthly stipend to live wherever they like. Say $1500 per month per family. And counseling to find the best house for their money, in the best possible school district. In six months 90% of DC's poor would be living in MD and VA.

There is a powerful coalition that benefits from the current system of apartheid: suburbanites, DC politicians, etc... Not so good for the families, though.

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You realize this could never work because once you leave DC you're no longer a resident, right? Or is this satire?

This is called paying poor people to leave town.