Is there some kind of balancing which prevents the nice areas (i.e. containing more affluent people) from becoming really nice, and the poorer areas becoming worse?
There isn’t explicitly, and I know that’s part of what the federal top-down model tries to prevent, but is it really working? The United States’ affluent areas are night-and-day to the poor ones.
If we think about the per-capita income in poorer areas of the States, and what can be taxed off of that, it seems like it’s still enough for that community to function.
The current U.S. model seems to result in everyone getting a much smaller pie, even if the government manages to change the portions of who gets what.
