Ha! Read Hanna Rosin on this:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/america...

Hannah Rosin studied this for The Atlantic (which is a progressive, left-leaning publication) and concluded that this simply spreads crime around making overall crime rates even higher.

I'd like to see any data actually backing that article's claim that crime in midsize cities has been rising (actually rising over a substantial period of time, not just a temporary uptick), given that every other source shows consistent multi-decade downward trends in crime at the national level and for the overwhelming majority of cities. https://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/dueling-claims-on-crime-tr...

The article does describe the phenomenon you're taking away, but Rosin's take is much more nuanced than "this simply spreads crime around." For example:

"Physically redistributing the poor was probably necessary; generations of them were floundering in the high-rises. But instead of coaching them and then carefully spreading them out among many more-affluent neighborhoods, most cities gave them vouchers and told them to move in a rush, with no support."

The Atlantic is hardly a “left leaning” publication (perhaps they seem left if they challenge Trump?).

If you believe that The Atlantic is not left leaning, you must be very far left.

The Atlantic might be fairly described as technocratic or liberal... but because liberal and left are distinct things, "left-leaning" isn't a good description for it.

"Left" and "right" tend to be about specific political positions and values, but an entity that's "liberal" tends to orient less around specific positions and more around meta-values that are about approach (and have a lot in common with western academic and especially post-enlightenment thinking), but will accommodate a variety of other values into discourse, just refereed by the meta-values. So, depending on what you define as "left leaning", you might find examinations and even cases for it (alongside conservative leaning points) in the pages a liberal publication, but they'll be grounded in liberal approach and will likely not be alone.

And that's why you'll see things like "Why can't people hear what Jordan Peterson is saying" in the pages of the Atlantic, even though Peterson seems frequently hostile to the left and vice versa, or discussions like "The Two Clashing Meanings of 'Free Speech'" that aren't value judgments about people like Milo Yiannopoulos.

If I buy an expensive house/flat in a nice neighbourhood the last thing I want is a new building full of problematic people. Sounds like political suicide, really.

The equating of "poor" and "problematic" is part of the issue here, and itself has a lot to do with the effects of concentrated poverty. A building with 15 or 30 units of people under the poverty line in an otherwise middle- or middle-upper-class neighborhood that's similarly dense is hardly going to cause noticeable problems.

There are really two options here.

You can mix low-income housing into larger complexes, creating mixed income communities. This does a lot to help create role models and show what life options are available and possible. It helps, in some ways, to break the cycle of poverty. This comes with the cost of utterly destroying the concentrated, focused support networks often found in less well off areas - they do not survive the dispersion.

The alternative is to prioritize existing communities. To focus on preserving the social ties and mutual support networks they know and trust. The downside is that while this improves the immediate circumstances, it preserves the concentration of poverty.

There's no ideal solution here. It's just a question of where your policy priorities lie.