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In the actual town that I live in, there is no poverty in the traditional sense. What I mean by that is that there are is no subsidized housing, no dollar stores, no Salvation Army, no homeless people, etc. However, I'd be willing to bet quite a bit that a good number of the families living in a large three bedroom, two bathroom home on it's own lot with two SUVs in the driveway, are living paycheck to paycheck or are in severe credit card debt which is another measurement of poverty.
I truly don't know. According to the U.S. Census, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro is a very poor area, yet according to my ground observations, we've had a recent proliferation of brand new cars lining the roadways and McMansions dotting the suburban periphery. Either the U.S. Census Bureau is wrong, or people in my area are "up to their eyeballs in debt!" Maybe everyone is dealing drugs? Hell, even my ex-hall monitor back in high school drives a Jaguar, and a number of the teachers drove Audis, Lexuses, Volvos, and BMWs! I just don't know where all of this "hidden money" is coming from. Even Scranton proper, which supposedly has a poverty rate of over 20%, has entire blocks lined with posh vehicles in several neighborhoods. Outside of the housing projects, I'm just not seeing how our area is "dirt poor", which is what everyone says it is.
Where I am living right now could not be more different than where I moved from in Denver. It's not just poverty. It is simply a lower standard of living.
When I was filling out a form at my son's pediatrician, these were a couple of the questions:
Do you live in a trailer?
Do you have running water?
There are wealthy people, too. And in-betweeners like ourselves. I guess it's just that the town is so small, I am not as insulated from poverty as I was in Denver.
"I just don't know where all of this "hidden money" is coming from"
With interest only no doc loan mortgages and leasing people are able to have the Mcmansions and the "fancy" cars. The funny thing is if you go into allot of these "McMansions" there is no furniture.
I know someone who bought a house in an exclusive gated community and they said "I bought the house for the equity it would build, it was my choice house or furnishings"
There are also many people who are up to their eyeballs in debt. Making only the min. payments.
I read somewhere that a large percentage of people out there are 1 or 2 paychecks from financial ruin.
With my 30 years in the credit industry when I see the fancy cars and huge houses the first thing that comes to mind is "yup there is a good chance they are in lots of debt"
I have to giggle when I hear young people say "I need to go out with that guy he drives a fancy car and has such cool clothes and goes out every night"
I want to tell them there is a pretty good chance he doesn't have a nickel in his pocket it's a plastic life he leads
Actually that story has haunted me and is, in part why I am asking the poverty question.
I saw that too, well, some of it. I was saddened and shocked. That teen-age boy is really struggling and I was proud of his stamina and drive. It reminds us to be thankful of what we have. It's amazing what people live without so my little house seems like a mansion after that show. I always want more but after that show, I see that I have enough. I hope they make it, I really do. If you do a forum search, you will find other posts on that same show.
Yes, quite a bit, I see it all the time. Thankfully, I am not living with it myself, but I regularly go through neighborhoods where crime and poverty is rampant (and at one point in my life, lived in one, but was young, single, and able to get out of the area after only a year, I can't imagine if I had grown up there).
Part of the dichotomy of the largest cities in this country is the extreme concentration of poverty and wealth within blocks of each other (or even on the same street). There is a house on my street that sold for 1.8 million dollars, on the same street an old drug house that attracted homeless people and criminals was recently torn down, less than a mile away are the crumbling remains of one of the nation's more notorious housing projects, and less than a mile in the other direction, there are still regular drive by shootings, open gang-activity, and plenty of substandard housing.
I saw that episode as well, sadly it did not shock me at all.
Last edited by j33; 02-20-2007 at 06:55 PM..
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Maybe everyone is dealing drugs? Hell, even my ex-hall monitor back in high school drives a Jaguar, and a number of the teachers drove Audis, Lexuses, Volvos, and BMWs! I just don't know where all of this "hidden money" is coming from. Even Scranton proper, which supposedly has a poverty rate of over 20%, has entire blocks lined with posh vehicles in several neighborhoods. Outside of the housing projects, I'm just not seeing how our area is "dirt poor", which is what everyone says it is.
