The Resurrection of America's Slums

[applegrove]

The Resurrection of America's Slums

Alana Semuels at the Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/more-americans-are-living-in-slums/400832/

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The development is worrying, especially since the number of people living in high-poverty areas fell 25 percent, to 7.2 million from 9.6 million, between 1990 and 2000. Back then, concentrated poverty was declining in part because the economy was booming. The Earned Income Tax Credit boosted the take-home pay for many poor families. (Studies have shown the EITC also creates a feeling of social inclusion and citizenship among low-income earners.) The unemployment rate fell as low as 3.8 percent, and the first minimum wage increases in a decade made it easier for families to get by. Programs to disassemble housing projects in big cities such as Chicago and Detroit eradicated some of the most concentrated poverty in the country, Jargowsky told me.

As newly middle-class minorities moved to inner suburbs, though, the mostly white residents of those suburbs moved further away, buying up the McMansions that were being built at a rapid pace. This acceleration of white flight was especially problematic in Rust Belt towns that didn’t experience the economic boom of the mid-2000s. They were watching manufacturing and jobs move overseas.

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Cities such as Detroit saw continued white flight as wealthier residents moved to Oakland County and beyond, further and further away from the city’s core. They brought their tax dollars with them, leaving the city with little tax base, a struggling economy, and no resources to spend on services.

Low-income residents who wanted to follow the wealthy to the suburbs would have had a difficult time. Many wealthy suburbs passed zoning ordinances that prohibited the construction of affordable-housing units or the construction of apartment buildings in general. Some mandated that houses all be detached, or are a minimum size, which essentially makes them too expensive for low-income families.



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[TexasProgresive]

1. Houston is seeing this in reverse, evidently.

I grew up in the Montrose neighborhood between the ultra rich in River Oaks and the African American neighborhood, 4th Ward. Saturday I drove past my boyhood home and was dismayed to see most of the old lovely houses had been razed to be replaced with 4 and more story apt buildings. So then I headed downtown through 4th ward. It was the same all the shotgun houses that lined W. Grey were gone with the same kind of development going on.

I did a search on 4th Ward Houston to find what happen to the residents. They have been force out to Pearland, Pearland of all places.

http://texasleftist.com/tag/houston-4th-ward/
snip:

So what is happening that so many African-Americans are moving out of the central city, and even out of Houston city limits altogether?

For poorer citizens, the reason is simple… gentrification. Houston’s historically black neighborhoods are being rapidly torn down and replaced by an upper income, young adult class. People that used to live in 3rd ward or 4th ward can no longer afford to be there. If they own property, they are under immense pressure to sell so that developers can build the type of housing that suits the “new urban” clientele. As a result, many African-Americans are leaving Houston proper for suburbs like Pearland and Missouri City, because it’s what they can afford. NPR covered this trend in 2012 where State Rep. Garnet Coleman discussed the alarming rate at which the city is changing.

You REALLY, REALLY, REALLY can never go back home

[applegrove]

2. In Canada we have amalgamated some of our cities. That helps. Then government can spread out all

people. I lived on the border of a suburb of Montreal, Lachine, that had some lower income housing but some dead shopping areas. I was on the water and near bike paths. As they started to gentrify it with condo units and such, they insisted that low income units be built too. You can't do that unless you have a big city with lots of power.