When a neighborhood itself is a mark against you, education stops paying off at the normal rate. A resident of an informal settlement needed twelve years of school to earn what an outsider earned with six. Coming from that place was the most-cited reason for discrimination, ahead of skin color, looks, or gender.
The belief that slum dwellers are cut off from the city and stuck in a self-made culture of poverty is false: they are tied closely into the city's working life, as its invisible labor. That false belief still does work. It excuses inequality and gives cover for bulldozing their neighborhoods.
Living standards can rise while people feel more shut out than before, because the measure of belonging shifts once basic needs are met. Over four decades, literacy among one family line went from mostly illiterate to fully literate, homes improved, and democracy replaced dictatorship. Yet residents felt more marginalized than ever, and half the educated grandchildren had no work.
Poor communities ranked decent work for decent pay above housing, safety, or services. Unless unemployment and underemployment are tackled, upgrading homes, policing, and neighborhood improvements leave the underlying problem in place.
Once the drug and arms trade moves in, the poor become collateral in a war between traffickers, vigilantes, and corrupt police, none of whom care who gets hit. This violence was the greatest change of four decades: nearly one in five people reported a family member murdered.