Neighborhood change is by definition a highly local process, and everyone wants to know how their city is performing: What about their city? Their neighborhood? Nationally, the number of high-poverty neighborhoods tripled, and the number of people in poverty in those neighborhoods have doubled, but this is not the pattern in every city. In Detroit, the numbers are even more staggering–the population living in poverty is more than 228,000, from less than 40,000 40 years previous. A few places like Virginia Beach saw an actual decline in concentrated poverty. Rebounding neighborhoods have been more common in some metros like New York and Chicago.
If you want to see the data for individual metros, we’ve created a city-specific dashboard. Just select the city of interest, and you’ll see a comprehensive set of indicators showing how your metro performed between 1970 and 2010.
As you look at individual cities, keep these overall trends in mind:
Most cities only had 1 or 2 “rebounding” neighborhoods, or neighborhoods that were previously high poverty, and by 2010 were below the national average rate of poverty (15%).
Nationally, the number of high-poverty tracts tripled.
Overall, the number of poor people in those high-poverty tracts doubled.
High-poverty neighborhoods that didn’t rebound weren’t stable: they lost, on average, 40 percent of their population over 40 years (both of poor and non-poor persons). This means most “chronic high poverty” neighborhoods saw a dramatic reduction in population by 2010.
The majority of the increase in those living in high poverty were in newly poor or “fallen star” neighborhoods. (Fallen stars are neighborhoods that had poverty rates below the national average in 1970, but have poverty rates of 30 percent or higher today). The number of fallen stars exceeded the number of rebounding neighborhoods 12 to 1.
The process of neighborhood change is often difficult and disruptive, and poverty and gentrification are sensitive topics. Each city is different and has unique challenges; however, most cities follow the national trend of increasing concentrated poverty. If we are serious about bettering the lives of the poor (and we should be), we need to carefully examine the data about change and look for solutions that are fully grounded in the facts of neighborhood change.
If you want to look at each city’s specific tract-level data, go to the report here and scroll to the maps. We will also be sharing an informational post about how these were made soon- check back in a couple days!
Is your city or neighborhood poorer than 40 years ago?
We recently released our latest report, Lost in Place: Why the persistence and spread of concentrated poverty–not gentrification–is our biggest urban challenge. It speaks to a national trend that’s been largely ignored– that urban poor are being concentrated into poorer neighborhoods, and that those neighborhoods are increasing in number. We speak here about some of those implications, and here and here we provide references to what others are saying about gentrification and poverty; here we address economic segregation.
Neighborhood change is by definition a highly local process, and everyone wants to know how their city is performing: What about their city? Their neighborhood? Nationally, the number of high-poverty neighborhoods tripled, and the number of people in poverty in those neighborhoods have doubled, but this is not the pattern in every city. In Detroit, the numbers are even more staggering–the population living in poverty is more than 228,000, from less than 40,000 40 years previous. A few places like Virginia Beach saw an actual decline in concentrated poverty. Rebounding neighborhoods have been more common in some metros like New York and Chicago.
If you want to see the data for individual metros, we’ve created a city-specific dashboard. Just select the city of interest, and you’ll see a comprehensive set of indicators showing how your metro performed between 1970 and 2010.
As you look at individual cities, keep these overall trends in mind:
The process of neighborhood change is often difficult and disruptive, and poverty and gentrification are sensitive topics. Each city is different and has unique challenges; however, most cities follow the national trend of increasing concentrated poverty. If we are serious about bettering the lives of the poor (and we should be), we need to carefully examine the data about change and look for solutions that are fully grounded in the facts of neighborhood change.
If you want to look at each city’s specific tract-level data, go to the report here and scroll to the maps. We will also be sharing an informational post about how these were made soon- check back in a couple days!
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