Poverty Moves to the Suburbs

[whatnext]

A very interesting article, showing how as cities gentrify the poor are pushed out to the burbs, but services for them haven't followed:

Poverty is moving to the suburbs. The war on poverty hasn’t followed.

...Nevertheless, nationwide, there are millions of people like Wilkins and thousands of towns like Capitol Heights. Low-income residents are disappearing from downtowns and becoming increasingly hidden from public view, scattered around the periphery of major metropolitan areas. And they’re growing ever more isolated from the government offices, social services, and networks of friends and relatives on which they once relied.

The trend has been as swift and sweeping as it has been overlooked. In 1990, Americans in poverty were 14 percent likelier to live in a city than in a suburb. By 2012, they were 22 percent likelier to live in a suburb. In D.C.’s suburbs, over the first 15 years of the millennium, the number of people in poverty grew by 66 percent. Elsewhere, the explosion was even bigger. Sun Belt cities led the way. The increase was 126 percent in Atlanta’s suburbs; 129 percent in Austin’s; 139 percent in Las Vegas’s. The Midwest wasn’t far behind: 62 percent in Cleveland’s suburbs; 84 percent in Chicago’s; 87 percent in Detroit’s. The suburban poor are likelier than their urban counterparts to be white and to own their homes, but otherwise they’re demographically similar, according to a study from the Brookings Institution. Two-thirds of both groups work, about 15 percent have a disability and nearly half are in deep poverty, below 50 percent of the federal poverty line...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.78e15a208ea2

[pdxtex]

this is article is misleading. to the casual reader, they might think poverty was increasing, its not. its just moving zip codes...so again its the same old story, gentrification is pushing people out of once low income neighborhoods. large media outlets should do a quick study of urban history. hmmm, so for 2000 years the central city has been the most desirable address?........yes.....but i agree. a lack of access to services is probably a challenge, but overall, poverty rates have been on a downward trend for 20 years...

[dubu]

The bigger the city the more poor people.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by whatnext

A very interesting article, showing how as cities gentrify the poor are pushed out to the burbs, but services for them haven't followed:

Poverty is moving to the suburbs. The war on poverty hasn’t followed.

...Nevertheless, nationwide, there are millions of people like Wilkins and thousands of towns like Capitol Heights. Low-income residents are disappearing from downtowns and becoming increasingly hidden from public view, scattered around the periphery of major metropolitan areas. And they’re growing ever more isolated from the government offices, social services, and networks of friends and relatives on which they once relied.

The trend has been as swift and sweeping as it has been overlooked. In 1990, Americans in poverty were 14 percent likelier to live in a city than in a suburb. By 2012, they were 22 percent likelier to live in a suburb. In D.C.’s suburbs, over the first 15 years of the millennium, the number of people in poverty grew by 66 percent. Elsewhere, the explosion was even bigger. Sun Belt cities led the way. The increase was 126 percent in Atlanta’s suburbs; 129 percent in Austin’s; 139 percent in Las Vegas’s. The Midwest wasn’t far behind: 62 percent in Cleveland’s suburbs; 84 percent in Chicago’s; 87 percent in Detroit’s. The suburban poor are likelier than their urban counterparts to be white and to own their homes, but otherwise they’re demographically similar, according to a study from the Brookings Institution. Two-thirds of both groups work, about 15 percent have a disability and nearly half are in deep poverty, below 50 percent of the federal poverty line...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.78e15a208ea2

Below is essentially what's happening:

http://statchatva.org/2014/09/26/a-f...any-us-cities/



Basically, businesses and residents with the means in inner ring suburbs are re-aligning themselves to the outer suburbs / exurbs or downtown areas of MSAs. IMO, I wouldn't invest long-term in an inner ring suburb.

[Docere]

There's a lot of variation in inner ring suburbs though, no? It seems most of the really wealthy suburbs are closer-in. The outer suburbs and exurban fringe may have high median household incomes but they're usually pretty homogenous areas of SFHs and above-average incomes, and less of a mix of housing types.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

hmmm, so for 2000 years the central city has been the most desirable address?........yes.....but i agree.

This idea gets repeated often, but I'm not sure I quite buy it. Cities' social and economic compositions have varied widely through time, and different patterns of settlement have held sway in different places. I'm not even sure we can compare what constitutes desirability when we consider the widely divergent economic structures that have prevailed—i.e., what might be desirable under feudalism is very different from what is desirable in an industrial society with a growing middle class (and, in the mean time, what is desirable for different classes—like the waning aristocracy and waxing bourgeoisie—might be quite divergent*). Cities were, after all, plagued by disease, mob violence and pollution (e.g., raw sewage or smog).

As specific examples of what I'm talking about, consider the movement of the French court to Versailles under Louis XIV, the movement of Prussia's most powerful to Potsdam under Frederick the Great, or even the establishment of the English court at then-peripheral Westminster several centuries earlier. Or, consider the proliferation of Imperial Free Cities in the Holy Roman Empire, which attracted the merchant class, to where the aristocracy chose to live (e.g., what was desirable for the merchant class of Cologne was very different from what was desirable to its Archbishop-Elector and his retinue).

And that's not even getting into desirability as it existed in societies organized around serfdom or slavery (e.g., the desirability of the rural plantation house over the city in the antebellum South). Desirability as we currently understand it requires, to a degree, the democratization of economic power.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

There's a lot of variation in inner ring suburbs though, no? It seems most of the really wealthy suburbs are closer-in. The outer suburbs and exurban fringe may have high median household incomes but they're usually pretty homogenous areas of SFHs and above-average incomes, and less of a mix of housing types.

Yes. I'm not aware of any U.S. or Canadian metro where the wealthiest suburbs are on the fringes. They're almost always older suburbs right in the middle of the favored quarter.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yes. I'm not aware of any U.S. or Canadian metro where the wealthiest suburbs are on the fringes. They're almost always older suburbs right in the middle of the favored quarter.

Hillsborough, CA is possibly the Bay Area's toniest suburb (although the contest with some other spots is fierce).

It's well down the Peninsula--18 miles by car--from San Francisco and over 20 miles from downtown. There are a number of more middle class suburbs closer in, between Hillsborough and the city.

House in Hillsborough:


http://www.priceypads.com/chiltern-28800000/

Other suburbs like Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park, Burlingame and Atherton are perhaps even farther from San Francisco--about midway bertween SF and San Jose.

Incidentally, apropos this thread, the starkest suburban contrasts as far as wealth goes has long been thought to be between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto, the latter being poor until very recently when nothing on the peninsula isn't gentrifying.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Hillsborough, CA is possibly the Bay Area's toniest suburb (although the contest with some other spots is fierce).

It's well down the Peninsula--18 miles by car--from San Francisco and over 20 miles from downtown. There are a number of more middle class suburbs closer in, between Hillsborough and the city.

Hillsborough is an older suburb, and nowhere near the sprawl fringe. It also sits smack dab in the Peninsula (region's favored quarter) with SF to the north and Silicon Valley to the south. It seems to be a pretty classic example of a top-tier suburb.

A suburb can be old and central and nowhere near the metropolitan core. Westport, CT is probably a good 35 miles from Manhattan but would generally be considered rather old and well-located, with top-tier prices and nothing resembling modern sprawl.

[Doady]

This is not new thing for Toronto.

• Video Link

• Video Link

[jd3189]

Or LA, with places like Compton and South Central.

[llamaorama]

This trend happened early in Houston and Dallas. The early 1980's oil bust and Savings and Loan crisis caused Texas cities to experience a dark age from 1982 to the end of that decade.

In the 1970's developers overbuilt suburban style apartment complexes literally everywhere, even on the exurban fringes.

They built a lot of cheap housing too for working class oil folks. Since interest rates in that era were so high, the homes were built really small and junky. One car garages, small or nonexistant yards, etc. Then, those workers all lost their jobs. Those neighborhoods went downhill fast.

Some of those developers were engaging in shady business tactics. When the economy went sour a lot of construction sites were just abandoned. There was an area on the eastern side of Dallas near the suburb of Mesquite which used to have a large number of concrete pads for apartments that were never built and ruined lakefront townhomes.

Then, you had the Reagan and Clinton administration's so called "welfare reform". Public housing got torn down. Poor inner city residents, mostly minorities of color, got housing vouchers and moved into these complexes. Into a no-mans land of no social support. Lots of white flight and people freaking out from this, and I think it cascaded into something that helps explain why Texas is so red. You had the Spring Branch "No N*ggers" banners incident. The white suburbs because super duper Republican conservative, and in this environment a young rich prep school student named Ted Cruz would get his start.

That was the era of the crack epidemic and crime waves in most US cities. At the same time there was a large influx of immigrants from Mexico and Central America and the first arrival of gangs like MS-13. A lot of that afflicted Gulfton and Sharpstown in SW Houston. A lot of neighborhoods got straight up scary. As a little kid I used to associate TV news with the sound of Sylvan Rodriguez saying "was taken to Ben Taub hospital where he later died"

So that's how you get places like Greenspoint near Houston to turn into slums overnight. It was one of the biggest and nicest malls in the region with a huge postmodern architecture high rise complex attached to acting as headquarters for oil companies and drilling engineering firms, all a quick drive from the airport. It became "gunspoint" and emptied out. Now it's a kind of weird time capsule of abandoned retail from the late 80's, and 80's style apartment complexes with frou frou names like "Willowick" that you avoid even in the daytime.

IMO all of this is what ruined Houston and made it into something that many consider unattractive, even if it's still one of the biggest boomtowns in the nation. It's like a physical manifestation of everything gross about the last couple decades of the 20th century. It's not just the sprawl and lack of zoning, but the culture and socioeconomics of that sprawl that's ick. There's either bougie mcmansion areas where people put those blue stripe decals on their trucks, or there's areas which are run down and nasty. t In other big cities you have older and affordable suburbs which are often their own separate municipalities. They have niceties like mature trees, sidewalks, public parks, public schools that aren't awful, etc. Houston doesn't have that kind of thing except for some expensive areas regular people can't afford like West University and Bellaire, and that is its loss.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

Below is essentially what's happening:

http://statchatva.org/2014/09/26/a-f...any-us-cities/



Basically, businesses and residents with the means in inner ring suburbs are re-aligning themselves to the outer suburbs / exurbs or downtown areas of MSAs. IMO, I wouldn't invest long-term in an inner ring suburb.

This doesn't gel with what's been happening in metro Boston or Providence for the past 15 years. Instead, "downtown" never stopped being pricey or desirable, the immediate inner ring burbs in the favored quarter (west) never stopped being pricey or desirable (think Brookline and Newton), and the non-favored inner ring burbs saw and continue to see massive gentrification.

For Boston / Providence, the "new donut" looks like:

Downtown + Urban Core + Inner Burbs are blue, then we have an "Inner Collar Burbs" where we see poverty increasing, and finally the "Outer Collar Burbs" which are typically exurban.

The best example I can give is Somerville, Mass - basically "North Cambridge". For its entire 20th century existence, Somerville was among the dumpiest of the inner-ring burbs Boston had. 18,000 pp sq mile of Irish poverty - this is where the Winter Hill Gang operated from. Fast-forward to 2018, and the city has gone from a 21% poverty rate in 1998 to 12% today, on the back of 8% growth rates since 2010. Davis Square is the new South End. Somerville is now a "luxury-only new construction" municipality, for better or worse.

Where did the poor people go? Probably kicked to Chelsea or further out to the Inner Collar Burbs like Norwood or Woburn.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Shawn

This doesn't gel with what's been happening in metro Boston or Providence for the past 15 years. Instead, "downtown" never stopped being pricey or desirable, the immediate inner ring burbs in the favored quarter (west) never stopped being pricey or desirable (think Brookline and Newton), and the non-favored inner ring burbs saw and continue to see massive gentrification..

Providence is still cheap enough for it to be mixed income in many areas I noticed.

Originally Posted by llamaorama

IMO all of this is what ruined Houston and made it into something that many consider unattractive, even if it's still one of the biggest boomtowns in the nation. It's like a physical manifestation of everything gross about the last couple decades of the 20th century. It's not just the sprawl and lack of zoning, but the culture and socioeconomics of that sprawl that's ick. There's either bougie mcmansion areas where people put those blue stripe decals on their trucks, or there's areas which are run down and nasty. t In other big cities you have older and affordable suburbs which are often their own separate municipalities. They have niceties like mature trees, sidewalks, public parks, public schools that aren't awful, etc. Houston doesn't have that kind of thing except for some expensive areas regular people can't afford like West University and Bellaire, and that is its loss.

No zoning. Houston is much worse and uglier than Dallas, San Antonio or Austin while Ft. Worth has Walker Texas Ranger to kick everyone's ass. There's nothing in this city in place preserving and protecting the integrity of an area if pretty much everything and anything can be built and then keep them up. That's why it seems like Houston planners and developers are on acid trips. Lets put a $150 million swanky condo tower next door to a rundown payday loan and Mattress Firm. Yeah...

[eschaton]

I agree that "donut" is very misleading. I think in most cities it tends to be more Downtown+urban core which is gentrifying, and the outer city neighborhoods and the inner suburbs tend to be the areas which have growing poverty.

Of course, a lot depends upon your definition of "downtown." Except in particular cases where it has different meanings, like NYC and Philly, I define downtown to mean the CBD and other areas nearby which have traditionally been dominated by commercial or institutional uses. the residential neighborhoods close to this area are not part of downtown, they are the urban core.

What the urban core means varies depending upon the city, but in most parts of the Northeast and Midwest I'd define it as basically everything initially built out before the end of the 19th century and/or the beginning of the streetcar suburb belt. Everything past this is "outer urban" these days.

[MayorOfChicago]

Not surprising at all, much of that early 1950's and 1960's housing is getting old and more funcationally obsolete from the standpoint of a family with a decent amount of money.

It's people realigning themselves. The "lesser" housing that someone in poverty can afford is now springing up in the suburbs in the form of these older neighborhoods.

[lio45]

I agree with eschaton and Shawn that these labels could be improved. I'd probably call the blue center "Downtown and Inner Core", and the black donut would be "Urban neighborhoods".

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

[Centropolis]

there should be a wedge overlay for many cities, sort of signifying that the sort of housing under the wedge is irrelevant re: property value and demand.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by MayorOfChicago

Not surprising at all, much of that early 1950's and 1960's housing is getting old and more funcationally obsolete from the standpoint of a family with a decent amount of money.

It's people realigning themselves. The "lesser" housing that someone in poverty can afford is now springing up in the suburbs in the form of these older neighborhoods.

yes and no. there are some high quality brick ranch layouts (along with the mcm sub-variety) that are becoming vastly more desirable than say split levels/90s garbage/etc. people like living on a 1/4 acre or whatever inside the outerbelt/innerbelt with rooms all on one gracious-sized floor...

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, i don't think too many cities operate in neat little concentric circle donuts like that.

in real life, geography, political divisions, water, heavy industry, "favored quarters", etc. make things a whole hell of lot messier.

but the general gist is true, there is more poverty in suburbia today than there was 50 years ago.

and in chicago's case, there are places in outer fringe suburbia with poverty issues as well, places like round lake beach, IL.