The welfare population needs to be dispersed. Large concentrations of long-term welfare clients become toxic. Assisted housing needs to be scattered site and small in scale, preferably located near job centers. The problem is that no one wants any of this to happen in their own neighborhoods. I understand this, but it is worse to warehouse the poor in massive concentrations where their kids destroy the local schools, crime and drugs destroy the surrounding neighborhoods, and the culture of poverty becomes the norm. The cities -- the smarter ones, at least -- are now trying to undo LBJ's welfare housing legacy.
If it were up to me, I'd shut down the projects entirely. Just close them one by one as they age out; don't rehab them. Give the low-income poor a voucher and tell them to find an apartment on their own. At the same time, attack exclusionary zoning and occupancy rules that prevent people from renting out spare rooms and basements, or prevent families from doubling or tripling up in single family homes. Even on your cul de sac. In other words, restore a free market in housing.
Would the poor flock to green leafy suburbs and scare suburban soccer moms and commuters? That depends on whether there are enough entry level jobs in a given suburban neighborhood to lure them. And if the jobs are there, the poor should be able to live reasonably close. The next time you visit a big suburban mall or office park, ask yourself if the sales clerks, clerical employees and maintenance staff can afford to live close enough to get there without a car. There's part of your answer.
This would never work. The "poor" take their bad habits with them and will quickly proceed to crap in their new nest.
We moved to the suburbs to get away from such people and if they come here we will merely move even further away. and the malls etc will end up looking just like the inner city.
The only answer is to reform them where they live. Kill those who commit violent crimes. Cut them off from the government teat so they HAVE to work or starve. (If they steal, kill them). Get them used to working again.
Our big malls are on bus routes already.
Dispersing the welfare populations just crushes the municipalities that receive them; you basically add more school taxes (already 75% of our highest-in-the-nation property taxes) without additional tax base. Concentrating the welfare class in cities allowed viable suburbs to thrive in the rest of the state; spreading them around will only destroy those areas. If there was a “free market” in housing, none of these people would live in the NYC metro area; it is too expensive for many working people, so there is no reason to artificially inject non-working people into it.