A welcome rebirth, or a culture destroyed?

A really interesting new study was released last week. The document was the result of follow- up research into a government program called Moving to Opportunity. The point of the program was to move families from blighted inner- city neighborhoods to better areas in the suburbs.

At first, it looked like another one of those failed liberal dreams of social engineering. Parents did not do better in wages than they had done in their old communities, nor did kids do better in school.

But the social scientists persisted, continuing to examine data. And what they found was striking: The children of the families that had been moved had a significantly greater chance of escaping poverty than kids remaining in the old neighborhoods.

It is possible to theorize about all this — greater opportunities, a larger culture of achievement, a reduction in gangs and gang violence, allowing teenagers to concentrate on other things. None of that is known. What is known is that the kids have a better shot at life.

This same conclusion was reached, more intuitively, by Jill Leovy in the book “Ghettoside.” She followed police officers and residents of South Central Los Angeles, and she observed that lots of people, men and women, longed to leave the neighborhood. The criminal justice system was ineffective there; cops were mistrusted; the business of enforcing community norms was left to gangs, who administered punishment and, occasionally, charity — or free passes from gang life to star athletes.

Homelessness, drug abuse, untreated mentally ill people — South Central had it all. So of course people wanted to leave, hookers wanted to stop hooking, dealers wanted to stop dealing, young mothers were desperate for a safer place. And some did get out, somehow, and their lives were better.

And their kids learned survival skills that were more useful in the larger world.

And that’s the dilemma of gentrification, isn’t it, particularly as it applies to West Oakland? Gentrification rips neighborhoods apart, prices longtime community residents out of their homes, imports an alien culture into a deeply religious community. Residents in West Oakland have photographs from the old days, when the blues and jazz clubs were on every corner and every Sunday was a fashion show on the safe streets. People grew up feeling protected by the culture.

But it was still a dreadful place to live. The police held absolute sway, aided by an implacable white power structure. I worked in Oakland at that time; I remember the chasm between black and white. That was just the way things were supposed to be; blacks were second- class citizens because they were said to be both lazy and dangerous.

That’s what the Black Panthers came out of: that terrible racist society. That’s why there were explosions of violence. Lots of white people in this Bay Area liberal bastion supported the movement, at least vaguely, because they’d been educated by the civil rights marchers in the South. But then there were murders and large demonstrations met by large numbers of cops and failed rhetoric and failed civic reaction. People died or went to jail or left to find a safer place. The movement slowly, sadly fizzled.

But then government money started flowing in. Early childhood education became a thing. Black cops were hired; black politicians and civil servants came to dominate. Many, many affirmative action programs were started. There was now a way out for kids who could find it.

But it was still pretty awful. Various drug epidemics swept through; underreported police shootings continued. Money was scarce, and petty crime was a way of life. People lived in fear of both the gangs and the cops. The curse of poverty was not lifted.

So: Break up the neighborhoods or not? The studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that everyone wins when integration takes place, when people are able to live with a little less fear and a little more hope. But that means a blending that some black people say is an effort to suppress their culture.

On the leading edge of the West Oakland gentrifiers are gay couples. A two- income professional family can find a house in Oakland that is a third of the price of a similar one in San Francisco. But there is a tension: A lot of conservative black Christians and Muslims don’t approve of gay marriage; indeed, may not approve of any kind of sexual contact between members of the same sex.

And anyway, these newcomers are white. They bring a different energy, a different set of assumptions. They like funky changing neighborhoods; they’re excited about the adventure. They open things, galleries or coffeehouses or vegetable collectives. People with money really do contribute to chronically cash- strapped Oakland.

I’m not sure that some kind of civic balancing act will work. In this country at this time, the economics of the marketplace dictate the future. Here’s a nice cultural center and 16 new basketball courts; here’s a tax hike for the wealthier neighbors. OK? Nope.

No one in Oakland civic government has come out with a nuanced view of the situation. But you can’t just be for or against in this thing; we need a community that is lying neither to itself nor to each other.

Moving out is moving up, at least for the kids. Is that what we want?