Suburbs' Grass Isn't Always Greener

[RainDog]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=usatoday/suburbsgrassisntalwaysgreener

For the first time, the number of poor people in the suburbs almost equals the number in cities at the center of metropolitan areas.


The stronghold of middle-class America for more than 50 years, suburbs now are home to an increasing number of the very poor and the very rich, according to a report to be released today by the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C.


The share of suburbanites living in middle-income neighborhoods dropped from 75% in 1980 to 61% in 2000, according to the Brookings report. During the same period, the percentage of people living in poor and affluent suburbs increased.


"The image of suburbia as middle class and with good schools hasn't caught up with the reality," says Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles and co-author of the report.

[AndyTiedye]

1. Be Careful What You Wish For

A number of people here have suggested that suburbanites should all
move back into the cities. When they do, the city-dwellers that they
displace have to go somewhere.

[Nihil]

2. Maybe it's the same people?

I don't suppose the study allowed for the 45-55 year old bracket ...
the ones who would have paid off their mortgage but still lost their
job in the great out-sourcing race?

They wouldn't necessarily lose their house but would not have the
"suburbanite middle-income" jobs. This means that they've just
slipped from one statistician's pigeonhole into another whilst
staying the same people in the same house.

Just a thought ...

Nihil