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njlauren -> RE: What causes urban poverty (3/24/2013 8:26:27 PM)
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: njlauren
Lot of reasons, and it is complicated:
1)Communities that have been stripped of a variety of economic levels. For example, city policy with public housing put such restrictive income levels, in them that the ended up with the hard core, multi generation welfare type of people, kids were brought up around multiple generations who had never worked. When poor kids are around middle class people, working class people, they have role models, when they are around a lot of people not working, they are influenced by that.
2)Schools starved for funds, because school funding is based on property taxes.
What, then, is the fix? Who's to blame when property values in one school district drop when values in other districts stay the same or rise? Do failing schools share some the drop in property values?
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4)Policies that shift jobs to suburban areas or to more wealthy areas of cities, that takes jobs out of the communities, hasn't helped. There are a lot of people who instead of looking at cities as a place where you can bring people together, where you can have a large job pool, see them as these cesspools and instead move jobs all over the place, then wonder why they have a hard time getting labor.
Part of the relocating business thing is that they do this to get into better areas (less crime, less risk of crime, etc.) or to move out to the suburbs where more of their employees live. And, there are times when higher paying jobs end up allowing people to move out of urban areas, which tends to lower the property values of the urban areas. And, then, to pay for all the services the poorer among us need, the urban areas have to increase taxes to pay for that stuff. And, as more and more people leave, the burden falls on fewer and fewer, leaving property owners/businesses to shoulder more and more. So, you end up chasing business into more friendly tax areas. And, that only exacerbates the problem.
So, the big question is, what can be done about it?
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5)Low expectations, the idea that somehow inner city kids can't achieve, so they create social promotion, they make school into some sort of soft jail, rather than expecting the kids to learn.
6)With schools, assuming that it is as easy to achieve results in an inner city school as it will in a well off suburb, not recognizing the differences. Among other things, inner city schools tend to draw the most inexperienced teachers, rather than experienced ones, where more well off schools attract the better ones. It also creates a culture where teachers are kept in bad schools who don't perform, because they think they can't get replacements.
And then, if not enough "______" (enter socioeconomic classification of your choice) kids don't pass, the schools will be faulted and there will be racism and/or other forms of discrimination alleged. I agree that no group should have lower expectations than any other group. That's ridiculous from the get-go.
[sidebar] When there is proof that an action, policy, or test is discriminatory, then that action, policy or test needs to be fixed. This is easily seen with the SAT/ACT/IQ test (or whichever test it was) back in the 80/s/90's. [/sidebar]
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If you really want to know? Do some research on Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the man wrote more books on the subject then most policy makers read....he had it nailed over 50 years ago, problem is, the conservatives read what he wrote and blamed the ills on the people, and the liberals were offended he aired the dirty laundry.
The answer is that property taxes are a horrible way to pay for schools, it puts the burden on too small a group and leaves is subject to the vagaries of the local economy, and it isn't just an issue for the inner city. Where I live, in a lot of towns, they put up new houses, that brought in people with families, and they suddenly found they had to expand the schools, which is costly, and long term residents found a tax bill on a modest ranch home doubled or tripled, which hurt senior citizens. It isn't broad based, it puts a huge burden on homeowners, and isn't fair since schools in an area with million dollar homes have a tax base many times that of a poor, inner city (or rural) area.
Unfortunately, then you run into the big bone of contention, towns want 'local control' of schools, then bitch about tax bills.....NJ has 660 school districts give or take, which is ridiculous......more importantly, if school funding is funded from income and other taxes, it comes from a wide base of people,and means that no one group of people will get snoggered.
Actually, the US is weird, we are the only country where education is left to the locals like this, all the countries we are competing with, the ones people make such big noises about,the South Koreas, Chinas, Indias, that are supposed to be turning out these fantastic students and such, all do it on a national level as does Europe. I realize it raises constitutional questions, but things like the fact that personal economics is one of the biggest indicators of academic success (in other words, no surprise, kids from better economic circumstances do better in school, duh).
In terms of business moving, it is complicated. Part of the problem is you end up with this idea of competing, of using tax breaks and other things to lure jobs from one place to the other, and it isn't always smart. Businesses in the burbs are located all over the place, and require driving, which clogs the roads, and people spend good parts of their days stalled in traffic, then the federal government funds widening highways and such, which ends up creating more traffic and jams....more importantly, a lot of these companies, because the burbs are expensive, end up having to build their own transportation, to bring people in for clerical and line jobs and such....it is a mess, that has unintended consequences, rather then looking at the region as the Regional Plan Association does, and realizing that jobs in the city provide economic benefit all over the place.....
There are no simple solutions, but the current system at best is a weak scaffolding, it isn't total collapse, but it isn't really working either.
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