as to declining property values and neighborhood standards on the one hand and the importance of providing poor people with the opportunity to make a better life on the other hand.

Regarding this: many other cities provide the former residents with vouchers to leave their old neighborhoods. The problem with this approach is that only certain landlords will accept the vouchers, these are usually slumlords who want to fill up crappy residences. This only relocates the former residents into scattered pockets of poverty throughout the city, once again surrounding them with other poor residents and bad schools. You are absolutely right that when "residential mobility" is neither well planned nor well executed the results are unproductive. Fortunately, evidence indicates that when done with some care (using criteria for subsidy eligibility, such as you mention above, and choosing appropriate target neighborhoods) relocation works, as the title of the linked essay claims. Here is the punchline from that piece, which unfortunately is examining race plus class rather than just class but is still relevant to your point:

This program had amazing results. Housing policy is usually narrowly viewed as providing shelter, but housing policy can radically improve people’s lives. Studies of this program compared family outcomes in mostly white suburbs and mostly black city neighborhoods.2 One study followed children who moved in this program and found that by the time that they were young adults, those moving to the suburbs were much more likely to graduate high school, attend college, attend four-year colleges, and (if they were not in college) to be employed and to have jobs with better pay and with benefits. A study of Gautreaux mothers found that suburban movers had higher employment rates than city movers, and the difference was especially large for adults who did not have jobs prior to the move. A recent study, using official records of AFDC receipt for all program participants, found strong neighborhood effects on AFDC receipt many years after moving.

And here are the selection criteria they imposed in this case, to make the new tenants more attractive to landlords and neighbors, along with a description of why they are necessary:

The Gautreaux program had three selection criteria that were intended to assure landlords they would get good tenants and make it more likely that participants would be able to remain in these apartments. The program tried to avoid overcrowding, late rent payments, and building damage by not admitting families with more than four children, large debts, or unacceptable housekeeping. None of these criteria were extremely selective. [...] Failure to screen out families who are unprepared for the move, or failure to give them appropriate preparation, may doom many families to failure while stigmatizing the entire effort. Social policy cannot simply gloss over these difficulties. Families with poor housekeeping skills, poor rent-paying histories, large outstanding debts, destructive family members, and/or active criminal involvement will make poor tenants and will be evicted. Programs that go to great expense to move such families and compel landlords to accept them will waste money and waste political support. Residential programs must have appropriate selection criteria.

Anyway, you raise an important topic that doesn't get a lot of attention, either because people find the discussion awkward or because there isn't much interest in the issue. Good to see the NYT cover efforts to integrate the poor into mixed income neighborhoods.

A brave essay, Forgiven, on an important topic: the American poor. Your good intentions and your desire to search for solutions are admirable.

Tophat links an article that, in a way, summarizes part of my position on this: who are we to tell people how to live? Who decides that a three-bedroom ranch in a gentrified suburb is better than a somewhat ramshackle two-bedroom trailer with a 90" big screen TV? Or that it's better to spend one's income on a 401k than beer for the buddies every weekend during football season?

Removing the freedom to choose how one spends one's money, how one lives one's life, seems to me to be akin to punishment, not to equality or equivalence or whatever it is we are seeking by "improving" the plight of the poor.

After Katrina, a woman testified before Congress. One thing she said has stuck with me. I'm paraphrasing, but it's the essence: Yes we were poor, but we were happy, our community was strong, our lives were full and we were content with how we were living. We aren't asking for you to make us rich; we just want your help in getting back what we had.

To me, the problem is not income, quality of housing, the age and model of my car, or whether or not I have a PC in my house --- the problem is civic services, and what a citizen has the right to expect from his government.

All citizens, regardless of where they live, should receive a basic minimum list of items from their local government:

--adequate police protection to ensure laws are obeyed and crimes are investigated
--a responsive fire department
--sewage and water services that are not detrimental to health
--access to electrical services (within reason)
--the ability to vote without undue hardship or obstruction

Others might expand on that list, but perhaps we could all agree that these are the minimum expectations of a governmental body in the USA.

Instead of telling poor people where to live, or criticizing their choices, or thinking they aren't educated enough to make the right decisions, or whatever, I think we should focus on making sure government is providing basic services equally to all citizens regardless of economic status. In other words, let's not worry so much about removing the person from the ghetto, but the ghetto from around the person.

To me, to do otherwise is just patronizing and removes the individual's right and responsibility to direct his own life.