Why not change DCs existing economic/demographic mix?
For presumably political reasons, there is no consideration given to changing the current demographic mix, either by improving the lot of current disadvantaged residents, or replacing some of the very poor households with high demands for city services with a few very rich households with little dependence on city services and no hang-ups about gentrification. As a possibly extreme illustration, replacing 10,000 poverty households with 10,000 childless households with a median income of $150,000 could change DC’s fiscal balance by $550M per year. Those funds could be used to alleviate the illiteracy of 50,000 persons per year, spending $11,000 on each. 16. Why perpetuate current levels of poverty instead of alleviating it? There appears to be a strong implicit bias towards the “benevolent perpetuation of poverty” by simply making the poor more comfortable with better housing. NARPAC prefers a far more pro- active local government effort to alleviate poverty and its sources, an approach
