Why does poverty exist?
I will agree with almost any answer. Race, education, religion, geographic location, effort, physical condition, mental ability, oppression, concentration of wealth, access to resources, and whatever anyone wants to throw into that list from either political spectrum.
How do we fix poverty?
The answer to how to we fix poverty is where i stop agreeing with certain types of people. I get tired of the "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" mythos that liberals think conservatives espouse. Most conservative do not believe impoverished people should just go to college, learn to code, and get a job. No one i know is that ignorant. My belief is that people are always capable of doing more for themselves by doing more for others.
Why does it feel like the liberal intellectuals want to destroy personal agency by suggesting no one is capable of doing anything for themselves or their community, if they are impoverished?
Because it has nothing to do with if leftists think that you can better your own situation at all on your own, and everything to do with them not wanting you to think that you can better your situation all on your own.
They know that you can, with hard work and determination, better your situation. You can't always "pull yourself up by your boot straps" from being homeless to being a billionaire. But you can get yourself to a place where you have a roof over your head, and food on your table, almost no matter what your situation is. They just don't want people to think like that.
Destroyed sections of cities lead to decades of poverty in an area, as happened in DC and Baltimore.
Live and let die.