With scattered-site housing, the hoodlums will still be hoodlums, but they will be widely scattered and surrounded by ordinary citizens. Also, those who are not hoodlums but merely poor will find themselves immersed in a functional community in which they can learn and prosper. Their children will come into daily contact with busy, productive people instead of gangbangers. If some kid wants to make a few bucks, he will be surrounded by wealthier people needing yard work or snow shoveling, or who run businesses and need to hire someone.

In most cities, the alternative to scattered-site housing is not free-market housing but giant housing projects. Pack 50000 poor people into a dense pack of housing projects and you create a self-reinforcing pit of poverty with no good examples, nobody needing yard work, no small businesses owners willing to take a chance on a young kid. And the hoodlums will rule it all.