Which city has retained more of its poor white working class, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh?

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by NYtoNJtoPA

I don't really know about that, given that Philly itself is predmominantly a black city, and the most impoverished major city in the nation. There are plenty of poor white areas outside the city like Bristol, Croydon, Tullytown, Bridgeport etc. Pittsburgh doesn't have the poverty level of Philly though cost of living has to be cheaper there, and the city itself is something like 65% white. So if I had to guess Pittsburgh has a larger population of poor white people, though it's probably nothing compared to the likes of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre which is the "whitest" combined metropolitan stat area in the country.

A few more quibbles...

1. Define "major city". I classify Detroit and Memphis as major cities with more poverty. Maybe you meant "highest poverty rate for a city over 1 million people" (which is still true). On that note, Philadelphia's poverty rate is now within ~3% of Houston's, and decreasing at a faster rate. It will be interesting to see if they swap places for that horrible title in the coming years.

2. Define "plenty". Half of your examples of poor white areas outside of Philadelphia are tiny pockets on the Philadelphia border (Tullytown is a borough of like 2,000 people). Of course there are pockets of poor or working class areas in the Philadelphia metro (as there are in any metro), but the key word is "pockets". By and large, the Philadelphia metro has less poverty and significantly higher incomes across the board.

3. Comparing the cities, Philadelphia is much larger, therefore the number of poor or working class residents is likely much higher. However, the income and poverty metrics are similar for each city.

To answer the thread, overall Pittsburgh (city and region).