Public Housing Complexes in Central Cities Are Ground Zero for Concentration of Poverty

Public housing complexes were seen as concentrating poverty both directly and indirectly. It would directly concentrate poverty because you had to be poor to be in public housing. But it indirectly concentrated poverty because anyone living around them in the private market who had any choices at all in the housing market would flee those neighborhoods, leaving only those with the fewest resources. And so, this notion of spatial concentration was immediately attractive to more progressive social scientists and liberal policy makers. The idea that we could significantly deconcentrate poverty if we just tore these units down, gave people the means to move elsewhere and then rebuilt, but rebuilt at a lower density.