I agree with you point in part, but this isn't exactly what I was getting at. I tried to keep my last post short and went with the education example because it was the easiest one. What I should have said is that when funds for everything that we reasonably expect for the government to provide, such as education, roads, public works, and the like, cultures can be influenced to change. Some of the inner city areas simply look hopeless and it's because city governments pump all of their money into tourist destination centers, rather than keeping the grass cut, the roads decent, and the sidewalks walk-able. And perhaps this is the cultural historian in me speaking, but there's a way in which that sort of physical environment is internalized and exacerbates existing cultural issues. And if this money was used to employ at least some local people in keeping their communities livable, then perhaps the sense of "who gives a fuck" might begin to change.
I got to this point in the paragraph above, but I'll knock a couple on the head. Cultural problems can be fixed by money. What do you think the advent of the middle-class did to Western culture? But it has to be spent properly. If lots of money is being spent on education, but the neighborhoods are filled with rotting and deserted house, and all of those other hallmarks of a poor inner city, then the money being spent on education won't do much good either, as the article illustrated.
