This is just yet another demographic map of the United States that happens to be using an extremely high quality data set.<p>If anyone wonders why Raj Chetty can't seem to reach the obvious conclusions the data points to, it's because his job and reputation depends on him not doing so. So instead the work has absolutely no explanatory power and just suggests relocating poor performing people to good performing zip codes. Why that won't reduce inequality is left as an exercise for the reader.<p>Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I'm criticizing because this supposed solution will be harmful to everyone. I want to improve outcomes for those who are doing poorly, this just won't do that.
First, this was too long. Well-done journalism does not have to be a tome unto itself; vignettes of his daughter the ballerina add little to the story besides acting as padding.<p>Secondly, I don't get this part. From the article:<p>> In the 1940s, the city built Independence Boulevard, a four-lane highway that cut through the heart of its Brooklyn neighborhood, dividing and displacing a thriving working-class black community. The damage continued in the ’60s and ’70s with new interstates.<p>I don't get this part. I thought red-lining and confining blacks to ghettos was the problem? Wouldn't building an interstate mean more commerce and more prosperity?
The gist of this seems to be "take poor families and give them assistance to move to neighborhoods with statistically higher opportunities". Which to me seems a little bit weird if taken to a broader extent - would that not lower the opportunity rates of the moved-to neighborhoods and potentially make the moved-from areas even worse off?
Going to get downvoted for this, but:<p>As time (t) => infinity, social mobility => 0 in any society that has a highly mobile social system.<p>Those who are inherently predisposed to wealth and power and up in positions of wealth and power, and so do their children. As time goes on, the randomness of poor life environments gets washed out, and peoples children end up where they should (in the destiny sense). If we acknowledge that evolution is a real thing, then we should acknowledge that abilities and skill sets for moving up in society are genetic. Believeing in evolution without believing that peoples personalities and abilities are predetermined is illogical and nonsensical. We can keep playing the shell game of why things might be the opposite, but to me it seems really silly. Let's all run around concocting all sorts of theories about society and societal structure to hide the inconvenient and humiliating truth.<p>In saying this, I am saying nothing about welfare, who should get it and why, because I do believe in strong welfare systems. I believe in equal opportunity, I just dont believe in mass constructed and distributed veils.