> I'm curious why it hasn't reversed despite these changes... Then came the gangs (70s-90s, still today)... Neighborhoods like this are/were/became: a) liter

> I'm curious why it hasn't reversed despite these changes... Then came the gangs (70s-90s, still today)... Neighborhoods like this are/were/became: a) literal war zones b) in many cases extremely hostile to non 'natives' Pretty much if you lived there, you wanted to survive or get out, and no one in their right mind who had a choice wanted to move in, until the gentrification wave of late 90s to now, which only came after crack wars ended and gangs started to be sucessfully supressed.. As for 'policy' - If you dig beyond the surface corruption, there are plenty of not-so-implausible tinfoil hat theories relating to using drug related crime as a foreign and domestic political tool in most countries..