There's this victimization mentality that acts like poverty is this absolute thing that is meted out like a cursed rock, outside the control and agency of whom it's been placed upon.
Why don't we have more discussion about the causes that lead to the effect of poverty.
It's really more productive to see poverty as being an effect, or outcome of other causes or actions. Change the input and get a different outcome. And at a certain point it becomes a personal responsibility. If you want to help someone else, great, but the two of you have to be pushing in the same direction.
And likewise, external conditions do have effects, if it comes to light that someone appears to be needlessly and negatively imposed upon there's clearly a place in society for discussing how best we can optimize everyone's external conditions. Everyone faces obstacles, but placing blame wholly outside oneself is always going to be a losing battle.
>On top of it all, if a murder occurred in a child's neighborhood — in an area of about six to 10 square blocks — their score fell by 7 to 8 points.
This is so ridiculous that people can make a pronouncement like that, thinking it's a reasonable analysis, or indeed the only analysis.
We know that intelligence is a highly stable trait. Meaning for intelligence to be significantly diminished[0] requires something pretty drastic, like a serious brain injury or some kind of long term deprivation. There is no reason to think someone being killed within a particular distance of someone would have any kind of effect. Do all soldiers come home as dunces?
Something seems to be missing from the kind of people that write these articles. Hard to say what it is exactly, a more holistic view, better analytical capabilities, less pre-conceived notions, intelligence? something...
If they had whatever missing ingredient, then they might understand that an analysis that stands up to rigor is something more like,
People tend to self-segregate along a whole host of traits[1], intelligence is a trait. The trait of intelligence is linked to a propensity for certain types of crimes. Murder among them, therefore it follows that the people that commit murder are statistically likely to have lower intelligence, as are the people around them.
>Oh, another thing: Living in these poor neighborhoods makes you significantly less happy, less hopeful, and less healthy
Oh, another thing: Any analytical mind of any worth can clearly see that the inverse has just as much going for it, if not more.
It seems to clearly follow that people who are less happy, less hopeful, and less healthy would make their neighborhoods poorer. How a focus on improving happiness, hope, and health? Telling people their predicaments are caused by factors outside of their control is the last way to improve any of those things.
[0]7 to 8 points is half a standard deviation, i.e. significant.
[1]See Schelling's Macro Micro, for some of the mechanisms involved.