26-09-2019, por The Economist
American poverty is moving from the cities to the suburbs
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| Fonte: The Economist 26-09-2019Clique na imagem para ampliar |
(..) To see the changing geography of American poverty, go instead to Harvey, a small suburban town of 26,000 just 20 miles (32 km) south of Chicago. Despite its proximity to a large city, median household income is an abysmal $24,343. After mismanagement and missed bond payments, the city’s finances are in freefall. One in four flats now sits vacant. Nearly 36% of its residents are classified as poor, higher than in many of the poorest counties in eastern Kentucky and the rest of Appalachia. Though Harvey was never rich, that is a drastic increase from the 22% poverty rate in 2000. And as politicians, journalists and sociologists continue to focus attention on the well-known urban ghettos on the city’s south and west sides, few are taking note of the worsening plight of places like Harvey or nearby Dolton, where concentrated poverty is now just as bad.
After the demographic changes over the past decade, there are now more poor people in Chicago’s southern suburbs than in the city itself. The same is true for the rest of America: a poor person is now much likelier to be found in the suburbs than in the big cities. According to the census taken in 2000, 10.5m, or 31%, of all poor people lived in the suburbs of America’s largest cities. The most recent estimates from the Census Bureau show that the number of poor people living in those suburbs has exploded to 16.3m, an increase of 56%. Unlike urban poverty, which has long been associated with destitute blacks, suburban poverty is more pronounced among poor whites and Hispanics. (Continua)
2019-09-30
