Poverty is not the only factor. It is the moral decay that has hit the inner city, particularly the black neighborhoods...take a look at pictures from any black section of Harlem or any black section of a city from the 40's or 50's or early 60's...beautiful, with shopping, culture, etc...but since the great society programs of the late 60's and 70's took hold and replaced families (read fathers) with a govt check and block of cheese, these same neighborhoods turned into drug havens and killing zones...yes poverty plays a role, but the breakdown of the family has played an even larger role.