Stage II in Rebuilding New Orleans

David Brooks writes:

"In those cultural zones, many people dropped out of high school, so it seemed normal to drop out of high school. Many teenage girls had babies, so it seemed normal to become a teenage mother. It was hard for men to get stable jobs, so it was not abnormal for them to commit crimes and hop from one relationship to another. Many people lacked marketable social skills, so it was hard for young people to learn these skills from parents, neighbors and peers...

...That's why the second rule of rebuilding should be: Culturally Integrate. Culturally Integrate. Culturally Integrate. The only chance we have to break the cycle of poverty is to integrate people who lack middle-class skills into neighborhoods with people who possess these skills and who insist on certain standards of behavior."

David Brooks is entirely correct about this. Cultural integration (also called scattered site housing) has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt to benefit the underclass - it helps "mainstream" the values of the children who live in these communities, it helps close the achievement gap between the middle and underclasses, and provides better cultural education for everyone by exposing children of the middle classes to those of the underclass.

I have lived in two of the most integrated communities in the nation (Hyde Park, Chicago and SW DC) and believe that it fundamentally works for everyone.