The lead, front-page news article in today's New York Times concludes with the following quote from one of the Times's ever-reliable Harvard-Brookings experts: "This makes public transportation a double-edged sword for cities. One the one hand, it takes care of poor residents, which is admirable. But on the other hand, it attracts the poor who create a host of urban problems."
This is so silly it's hard to know where to start. Begin with the error in the phrase -- it should be "On the one hand," not "One the one hand." Then consider that the Times is published at New York and read by passengers on the Long Island Railroad, PATH and Metro-North. That's public transportation used frequently by middle-class, upper-middle-class and rich passengers commuting to New York from prosperous Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester and Connecticut suburbs. The stereotype about public transportation being used mainly by the poor may be true in other cities, but it doesn't ring true for New York. Anyone reading this quote while getting on a Metro-North train this morning in, say, Greenwich, Connecticut, is probably throwing down his or her paper in disgust. Finally, unpack the notion that the poor "create a host of urban problems." Smartertimes.com is as willing as anyone to hold the poor responsible for their behavior, but even Smartertimes.com wouldn't veer this far into elitist classism. It's not the poor that cause urban problems. Poverty is a problem, in cities and anywhere else it occurs, particularly for those stuck being poor. But when poor people come to American cities, they often don't cause "problems"; they are more likely to work hard and get rich. While they do that, they help the rest of the people who live in cities by working in jobs that the rich people don't want to have to do themselves. Poor people aren't problem-causers; they are a labor pool. Lots of them are immigrants, and their children won't be poor. It's unclear what "urban problems" the Times -- or the expert the newspaper gives an unchallenged platform to -- thinks "the poor" cause. Crime? Crime is caused by criminals, not by poor people. There are plenty of rich criminals out there. Disease? Disease is caused by germs and bacteria and by lack of health care, not by poor people. There are plenty of sick rich people and clean, healthy poor people.
Note: The "Letters About Smartertimes.com" and "Letters About the Times" sections were updated yesterday with new material about Senator McCain, the Oxford English Dictionary and the Football Hall of Fame.