I ask, because as I read his call (within the context of the destruction of New Orleans) for breaking up concentrated populations of the urban poor, and integrating them into middle class neighborhoods, I have a mental image of him observing the consequence from the upper stories of a luxury apartment building. It's not that the problems he describes aren't real. It's not that it might not work, particularly for future generations who might otherwise be born into blighted neighborhoods. It's just that he seems to be (again) calling exclusively upon others to shoulder the burdens of his political agenda and proposed social experimentation.
After all those years in Ann Arbor, especially the ones at the U of M, and you aren't used to the Limousine Liberal phenomena?
ReplyDeleteI have a better question, where does he plan on putting the people who formerly resided in New Orleans and how does he plan on enforcing his decision to not "allow the same people to move back into their old neighborhoods?" If he doesn't want to force out people who want to live in New Orleans (and there are quite a few), how will he implement his plan?
"For New Orleans, the key will be luring middle-class families into the rebuilt city, making it so attractive to them that they will move in, even knowing that their blocks will include a certain number of poor people."
If I follow his premise, that by surrounding citizens with "undesirable expectations" with citizens with "desirable" expectations, we can influence the children positively . . . that would seem to imply that we need "more" good examples than bad. So if as he says the key is moving "good example people" aka "middle class" folks into New Orleans' formerly "poor" neighborhoods . . . where do we put the 51% of the "poor" people who used to live there? Do we just tell every second family that we will not allow them back even if they want to live in New Orleans?
CWD
David Brooks, though, isn't a limousine liberal. You may well be right to depict him as pampered, spoiled, and out-of-touch, but... he's an unabashed conservative.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he's proposing settling more middle class people in New Orleans. I think he's proposing that the redistributed poor of New Orleans be settled in middle class areas around the nation, and prefers that they stay there.