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I don't think those poverty numbers are exactly accurate but it's true urban poverty is a huge problem.
Philly is one of the poorest cities in the country something like 35 percent of people in the city make under 25k. That's awful, under 25k isn't going to get you anywhere in a city like Philly.
Also one thing to note is since cities have a higher cost of living and there's no way to live off of the land a poor city person is going to be worse off than a poor rural person. The poor city person will have access to public transportation and more social services that would be the main thing they have going for them over a poor rural person.
Last edited by wanderlust76; 05-31-2017 at 10:35 AM..
Lived in a small town in Missouri for a few years. The people were nice and cost of living was low, but having to drive an hour to buy a pair of shoes isn't my idea of fun. No thanks, not for me.
The job market was non-existent. Everyone worked for the school system, the local government, or drove over an hour to the city.
Lucky us who live in cities and love them; A new analysis in the WSJ shows that the folks who live in rural America are by far worse off in general than the rest of us:
"...a Wall Street Journal analysis shows that by many key measures of socioeconomic well-being, those charts have flipped. In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs and medium or small metro areas)."
Much has been written already about the loss of population and the "diseases of despair" that hit these areas, like alcoholism, drug use, and suicide, but it's still a bit shocking to me to see how badly off rural areas are. Not only are factories shuttering, but the lack of public transportation, hospitals, child care, and social services compound the ills of daily living.
We whine about all that's wrong with New York, or Chicago, or San Francisco, or any number of other cities. But we should be happy to be there rather than out in the boonies. It's long past time that the U.S. realize that the real face of poverty and social dysfunction isn't just some L.A. gangbanger or thug from East New York or the West side of Chicago.
The question is what will the nation do about it? And should it do anything at all? And if something is to be done, will Trump and the Republicans--whom many if not most of these people voted for--be the ones to do it?
Looking for an excuse for rural cleansing and tearing the bible and guns away from their grasp?
Ask mainers about the great depression and they will come back and say , 'what depression'. Ethnocentric attitude of elitists think they need to go around changing cultures to match their likes and dislikes. Many are rural for a reason.
You can buss the poor and needy to the latest government sponsored ghetto placed right next door to a high class neighborhood. 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you".
Thank you for the link! Very interesting. I think your original post misrepresented the data though.
The data on the interactive map (as stated in the article) is tracking neighborhoods with concentrated poverty levels above 20%, and determining the change in the amount of population within cities living in neighborhoods with a >20% population level. The statistics therefore are not reflective of the city poverty rates as a whole.
With that said, America wide, poverty, or close to poverty is an absolute problem:
You can keep your city life... having to deal with people and traffic lights would drive me insane very quickly... particularly the traffic laws that make a person sit at a stoplight and wait when nobody is around, that drives me nuts.. should be able to treat stop lights like stop signs.. but I'm going off topic here.
Needless to say I love the open space where I live... go for a drive in the country and have NO other cars around.. that is peace...
To each his own.
To me, having to stop at a red light or a stop sign (mostly on weekends when I actually use my car) is a very small price to pay in order to have an excellent paying job with union benefits just a walk away from my home. My commute is a twenty minute walk, or a six or seven minute trolley ride if it's raining.
A 20 acre park half a block from my house is "open space" enough for me. I rejoice in the fact that within a mile of my home is one of the very best medical complexes in the entire country, a hundred or more restaurants serving the three dozen different international cuisines, dozens of drinking establishments from sports bars to jazz clubs or piano lounges. At my disposal are among the very finest symphony orchestra, pops orchestra, art galleries, museums, lecture series, film festivals, live theater and musical theater, excellent shopping, strolling in charming historic districts, student recitals at the university, etc., etc.
Honestly, when I am out in the country, no matter how pretty the scenery, I get bored out of my wits! Maybe if I was into hunting and fishing it wouldn't be so bad. I do not like the idea of being dependent on a car ... once my car was in the shop for four or five days because the mechanic had to order a part - I didn't miss it one bit! I can hop on a bus or train and be in New York City or Baltimore or Washington or Atlantic City for a day trip.
Living in a city offers me choices rural areas do not. City life offers me opportunities the rural areas do not. However I recognize that there are folks out there with different interests than me. Solitude in a wilderness setting is heavenly for some folks ... not me.
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