I don't disagree with you at all, Bobert. But what he emphasizes, and what is not usually talked about at all, is that efforts to reduce poverty need to be much more broadly defined, and need to extent well beyond programs targeted at low income people. He is advocating a broadly multisystemic approach and has identified how issues of infrastructure may work to increase or decrease the costs of living and working. These are issues that effect everyone, not just poor and low-come families.

He is very wholistic in his thinking, pointing out how deficits in urban infrastructure contribute to creating and maintaining an underclass. He is saying, lets look at unintended consequences. When we are planning infrastructure, economic development, and the like, let us also think about the effects policies and design of systems and services intended to benefit John Q Public may have with respect to helping or hindering people with low incomes. He is also talking about the need to consider sustainability in all public policies and projects. Failure to consider sustainability of economic conditions and already existing communities and neighborhoods in the planning processes of cities and counties fosters conditions that contribute to economic decline and poverty.

Janie