Let me just take a second to respond to Daniel's last post before getting into the moral argument behind The Trap. Daniel implies that I'm suggesting young idealists move to "poor neighborhoods" or "the worst neighborhoods" or "the ghetto". This is another instance where I think he simply can't shake his ideological perspective.

What I noted was that the kind of neighborhoods that young idealists are likely to find attractive – those that the Brookings Institution report he cites unfortunately calls "low income" – have increased in number, contrary to Daniel's claim. But these aren't poor neighborhoods. They are neighborhoods where the "median" household (the one in the middle) has income that is between 50% and 80% of the metropolitan area's median income – where the typical household is 20 to 30 percent poorer than the typical household in the metropolitan area (encompassing city and suburb).

Let's make it more concrete. The median income in the Washington D.C. metro area was $72,247 in 2000. Therefore, a "low income" neighborhood was one in which the typical household had an income between $36,000 and $58,000. These neighborhoods are in contrast to "very low income" neighborhoods (again, the report's terms, not mine or Daniel's). In D.C., the typical household in such a neighborhood has an income between $0 and $36,000. As an example of a very-low-income neighborhood, think of Anacostia, one of the more desolated inner-city neighborhoods in the country. Thanks to the website Dana mentioned, I can tell you that the median household income in, for instance, Anacostia's 20020 ZIP code was $28,000 in 2000. That's not an inviting neighborhood for Ivy League graduates.

But now consider Dana's ZIP code – 20009, where the median was $42,000 as far as I can tell rather than the $33,000 she reports. Otherwise, though, she describes it well. It encompasses the current hot neighborhoods that are gentrifying -- Logan Circle, Mt. Pleasant, Adams Morgan and the U St. Corridor -- as well as housing a lot of Howard University students, long-time low-income residents, a good chunk of the city's Latino and immigrant populations, and professionals young and old.

I'll actually be moving to the same ZIP code next month. I'm not moving there out of economic necessity – my rent will actually be going up because I'm not going to have a roommate. It's just a ZIP code with a lot of cool neighborhoods. If I were doing better, I'd have tried to buy a condo there. If I were doing a less well I'd have remained in my current ZIP code where the median income is over $80,000 but my rent $900. If I were desperate (and had a gun to my head) I'd move to Virginia (I kid! I kid!). My point is that Brookings' "low income" neighborhoods are quite livable and even qualify as the hip neighborhoods that attract young idealists.

But not if they aren't willing to make sacrifices. If I were saddled with debt from law or medical school or made the salary I did when I briefly worked for ACORN in St. Louis, I would actually have to consider moving to Virginia. Is that unfair?

Which brings me to the moral argument of The Trap. I think what would be helpful to me would be if Daniel would be more specific about his notions of freedom and fairness. At places in the book, one gets the impression that for him, freedom means allowing every aspiring film-maker to afford to live in a neighborhood like the Castro, allowing every human rights worker to either graduate from college debt-free or to live in the East Village, allowing every would-be public interest activist to live in North Beach while affording to raise children there.

He seems to believe freedom means the right of everyone to afford to pursue their passion (regardless of how productive it is, or who is willing to pay for it, or how much they are willing to pay) in the residential area of their choosing. This right would seem to carry with it the obligation of others to pay the difference between how the market values an individual's passion and what it costs for the person to live where he or she wants to.

Am I wrong? To Daniel's credit, I think his book could serve a useful purpose by forcing progressives to ask themselves what they believe people are entitled to in this regard, and what others are obligated to give them. I'd like to close by offering a list of possible rights that one might believe are universal and that Daniel's book in places is sympathetic toward or outright advocates. So which of these rights would you defend?

• the right to a minimum income if one works that is as high as the U.S. minimum wage was at its apex
• the right to a minimum income if one works that is high enough to afford comfortable housing in the most desirable neighborhoods
• the right to a minimum income regardless of whether one works
• the right to state-financed health care coverage as good as the typical person's today
• the right to state-financed health care coverage better than the typical person's today
• the right to state-financed child care for one child
• the right to state-financed child care for as many children as one desires to have
• the right to a free 4-year education at a public college or university
• the right to a free 4-year education at whatever college or university one can gain acceptance to
• the right to have private elementary or secondary school tuition paid by the state if the public schools are bad
• the right to rent-stabilized apartments in expensive neighborhoods
• the right to live in the neighborhood one grew up in, even if it becomes too expensive for one to afford
• the right to a summer home in Connecticut
• the right to a subsidy so that one can marry the person that they would marry if not for that person's income
• the right to live without roommates
• the right to major in whatever one wants in college and to receive compensation if it doesn't lead to a job that pays as well as one a pre-professional degree would win
• the right to shop at Whole Foods instead of Shop 'n' Save

Where do others' rights and obligations end? I suppose Daniel is simply trying to get people to expand their notions on that question without getting into the tough details of what people may rightly claim from others. But it comes off as a copout, and not only for his failure to delve into these questions.

Also absent is any discussion of whether such claims at some point become counterproductive. Flattening incomes entirely would kill incentives to be productive and to take risks that might produce innovations that would expand happiness for millions, or billions.

To not deal with these complications is to engage in political debate at the level of a dorm-room argument. Daniel is obviously way smarter than that, and despite not being a fan of The Trap, I hope he'll continue to develop his ideas further in future projects.