For richer, for poorer

Walking through Chinatown and the Theater District, Derek wonders:

Why is it that the areas of a city which have the newest buildings and amenities end up being the largest magnets for drug dealers, prostitutes, and homeless? ... The tipping point came a couple of weeks ago when a police officer told a group of people in front of St. Francis House to make room on the sidewalk so that passers-by could walk unobstructed. But now I've begun to notice that there are homeless people on both sides of the street spitting, smoking, cursing and blocking doorways; that there are bedraggled women (and some cross-dressing men) shouting and lingering around the area; and that this particular square block of downtown has an air of danger that it didn't have in the two years that I've been working in the area ...