The hood is not just gang territory filed with drug dealers, there are some people that cant afford better places to live. Especially in New York where you have the project houses , they house Asians, Blacks, Hispanics and Whites. These are the people who try to achieve the American dream. The hood people you see on the street don't do school usually because they've tried and failed or they've been sucked in by OG's. People try to make it out of the hood with sports, education, scamming, drug dealing for they feel that those are the only paths available. There are not many other paths in the projects, either you die, you kill to live, you steal or you play sports (all these things are inexcusable). But when you strip down the whole basis of human Behavior in the beginning it was to survive under any means necessary.
I have friends whose siblings have made it out of the hood, friends who siblings are drug dealers its just the paths they choose.