That's because the words "uncivilized" and "defective characteristics" are words tied to cultural, social, and moral norms that vary from person to person, so i

That's because the words "uncivilized" and "defective characteristics" are words tied to cultural, social, and moral norms that vary from person to person, so it's hard to have a quality discussion along those lines. In my book there are "uncivilized" and "defective characteristic" people among all sorts of income lines (and vice versa), up to and including the very rich. I will say that I do kind of get what you mean (in that there may be unique problems with concentrated poverty that hinder mobility -- as a theoretical, for instance, if crime was a much bigger problem in impoverished areas, that definitely would be of concern). But too much of the low quality articles written on poverty have a high tendency to fall back on stereotype... we must be careful to be more data oriented. Personally, I don't think this story was one of those political type stories you often see on this type of subject that fall back on well-worn tropes. This was a study that simply tried to examine whether subsidized housing helps out future household earnings. For many groups, it did. For a few groups, it didn't. In light of the issues with social mobility in America at present, I didn't consider the article that low quality personally. The original study probably would have been a fair bit more enlightening and hopefully had a much more thorough analysis: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22721?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw http://www.nber.org/papers/w22721?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_mediu... But unfortunately it's behind a paywall. :|