Are American ghettos completely beyond hope?

[opebo]

Just about every city has substantial neighborhoods that are in utter ruin. Despite some gentrification here and there, I don't see much reason to believe that this will ever change. With the $8000 tax credit, there are houses that are free, and nobody wants them. Thoughts?

Not as long as the power hierarchy is in place which creates ghettos, memphis. 

And you're wrong, Al, 'slum clearance' doesn't make a place not a ghetto.  What nonsense - it doesn't matter how new are the houses.  Political power (money) to the denizens makes a place not a ghetto.

[opebo]

And you're wrong, Al, 'slum clearance' doesn't make a place not a ghetto.

You think that the slum dweller makes the slum then?

No, those who victimize the slum dweller make the slum.  They don't stop victimizing him just because he has a new hovel.

Decent houses = more power (in various different ways) to the people that live in them. Obviously that wouldn't be a solution to the complicated trap that most blacks are caught in, but it'd be a big improvement in quite a few ways. Though, obviously, there's no chance of it happening any time in the next few decades for the usual reasons...

Don't get me wrong, I think they should be given new houses, of course.  But I think we also need to take away the 'houses' - the powerful positon - of those who are victimizing them in the first place.

[opebo]

You really do need a new shtick.  But I suppose you can't quit with nobody else here to play that role for us.  Maybe one of our sock friends can help us out here?

Friend, you may call it 'schtick', but it is no more consistent than your market worship and slavish devotion to the rich.  At least my position is the one which is absolutely shut out from power, so there's at least a rational for harping on it (most people have never heard of it).  Why you keep spouting capitalism I don't know - its the dominant paradigm so there's really no reason to mention it.