Hidden in a Census Bureau report on poverty released in late August is
a factoid with significant political and social consequences. Poverty
has moved to the suburbs. Or, more accurately, poverty has expanded to
the suburbs. Today, 13.8 million poor Americans live in the
suburbs--almost as many as the 14.6 million who live in central cities.
The suburban poor represent 38.5 percent of the nation's poor, compared
with 40.6 percent of the total who live in central cities. The
headlines about the Census report focused on the increase in overall
poverty--from 11.3 percent of all Americans in 2000, a twenty-six-year
low, to 12.5 percent in 2003. In the last year alone, 1.3 million
people fell below the poverty line, bringing the total to to 35.9
million. The suburban landscape today has changed. More suburbanites
now commute to other suburbs than to cities. A growing number of
blacks, Latinos and Asians now live in suburbia, although suburbs are
still racially segregated. Similarly, the poor are not randomly
scattered across the suburban landscape; they are concentrated in
inner-ring suburbs close to cities, as well as in the suburban
fringe--former rural towns swept up by suburban sprawl. [more ]
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