One would think that the places where the poor are more segregated would be beset with higher levels of economic inequality. But ... how much money people have seems to matter more than how big the gap is between the rich and the poor. One possible explanation is that people in these more affluent metros have greater means to segregate themselves. Since housing prices typically track incomes, higher prices may well leave poorer residents with fewer options, reinforcing these higher levels of segregation. Poverty is not just the absence of money. It is geographically concentrated and it brings with it a host of troubling neighborhood effects. A Harvard sociologist notes that the stigmatization heaped on poor neighborhoods and the grinding poverty of its residents are corrosive, leading to … ‘moral cynicism’ and alienation from key institutions, setting up a cycle of decline. ... similarly, neighborhood inequality is multigenerational, something that is passed down from parents to children in the same way that genetic background and financial wealth are transmitted across generations.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 22:51:47 +0000