The December 28th
Wall Street Journal called to my attention a study by HUD of 1,700
ghetto families who were moved from the ghetto to safe neighborhoods,
often in small towns or suburbs. The families were tracked for ten
years and compared to a control group that remained in the original ghettos.
The key thing about most people I know is that they don't learn from reality. They didn't learn about the failures of socialism and government expansion in the last century and they certainly won't learn from this study.
This study was very well done and conclusive: you can take the kid out of the ghetto but the ghetto does not leave the kid. Although there were a few trivial results, like the girls who left the ghetto smoked less than the girls left behind and the opposite was true of the boys; nothing of significance economic, educational or social importance changed.
None of this will keep the social engineers from continuing to expand and remodel public housing, trying to move ghetto families out of the ghetto or any related counterproductive social meddling.
There is very little that will get rid of black ghettos other than time and assimilation. 
On
the positive side, my brother created a public housing project that
works for creating a pleasant and safe environment for 1,500 families in a major American city.
Several non-lefty ideas are built into my
brother's project that few
other housing or development projects will learn and certainly nothing
the San Francisco supervisors will ever learn. First, mix low cost
housing, with market rate housing of high quality and sprinkle in a
little subsidized public housing. Second, heavily weight the population
toward hard working immigrant groups,Filipino's, Vietnamese, Koreans,
etc and keep the black population small. Third, build in good retail
chain stores including large groceries, Walgreen's, clinics and sport centers.
Summary: you can take the kid out of the ghetto but not the ghetto out of the kid. Rebuild the ghetto in a way that no lefty will approve of with favoritism for hard working immigrants, few blacks and plenty of big box American commerce.