No. The problem is an adversarial, frequently criminal, subculture in the underclass. This is rooted in illegitimacy, too many fatherless children, and long term welfare dependency. The problem has been exacerbated as the black middle class, now the substantial majority of the black population, has moved up and out. The really festering areas are dominated by the left-behinds, by now the product of three or four generations of inbred failure which rapidly became the excuse, the expectation and the norm for the underclass.
Several things have to happen. The black middle class needs to stop rationalizing and excusing dysfunction. Most of the feral "youths" roaming the streets have near relatives -- uncles, cousins, brothers -- who got a job, and left the mean street behind. We are way past the point at which white people can preach to this crowd, but the black community needs to start demanding more of its own. And the black leadership needs to change; when the sober histories of this era are eventually written, there will be a special level of contempt reserved for the army of race hucksters who stepped to the front after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
Here in DC, the big centralized housing projects, one by one, are being closed. Low income housing needs to be dispersed, and is being dispersed. If that means the suburban jurisdictions have to shoulder part of the load, so be it; the suburbs are where the service sector job growth is to be found, so the suburbs are where lower income people need to be living if we expect them to work. And disastrous inner city schools have to be fixed. School choice will do that, over time, and in the long run I think we will win that battle.
Integration has not failed. It is the un-integrated left behind population that constitutes the problem.
Bad policy created this problem. Good policy is needed to correct it.
But that means spreading out the ghetto into the vast middle class, and that results in the spread of crime, litter, intimidation, and violence into those previously safe areas.
I do not want my child going near that.
I want her to live.
“Low income housing needs to be dispersed, and is being dispersed.”
Spread the ferals and their crime to otherwise nice neighborhoods and schools? I think that is super stupid. It sounds like the kind of idea the gubmint would come up with.