That article is extremely lacking precise data and methodology, but seems to be directly misrepresenting 'revenue' by ignoring costs. There's an ironic joke in

That article is extremely lacking precise data and methodology, but seems to be directly misrepresenting 'revenue' by ignoring costs. There's an ironic joke in the poker world. 'I won $100 this weekend. Oh yeah, but how much did you lose!?' Poorer neighborhoods are generally going also have poorer occupants, higher crime, and related issues. This means vastly greater expenditures on welfare, medicare, various social programs, law enforcement, and more. So you may have received $x in property taxes, but how much did you lose? Even just consider the crime side of things. How much does a murder cost? There is an immense amount of legal fees, prison fees, police cost, and other related expenses. I really am reluctant to link to a social sciences study, but maybe we can say it's a way to at least start the conversation. This [1] slate article references those numbers. And they're pretty jaw dropping - ranging from $41,288 for a car break in to $17,252,656 for a murder. We've only considered a small fraction of all costs, yet already those densely packed low income neighborhoods suddenly aren't looking like such a good bet after all. [1] - http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2010/10/true_crime_costs.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2010/1...