SPREADING THE LACK OF WEALTH

Study Shows Poverty in U.S. Less Concentrated (ROBERT PEAR, May 18, 2003, NY Times)

Poverty in the United States became far less concentrated in the 1990's as public housing projects were torn down and millions of poor people left urban slums for other neighborhoods, a new study of Census Bureau data says.

The number of people living in high-poverty neighborhoods declined by 2.5 million, or 24 percent, to 7.9 million in 2000 from 10.4 million in 1990, the researchers said.

The author of the study, Paul A. Jargowsky, an associate professor of political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas, described this as "a significant turnaround from the 1970-1990 period, during which the population in high-poverty neighborhoods doubled."

In 1990, 15 percent of all poor people lived in high-poverty neighborhoods. By 2000, the proportion had declined to 10 percent, according to the study, issued today by the Brookings Institution.

"Concentrated poverty - the share of the poor living in high-poverty neighborhoods - declined among all racial and ethnic groups, especially African-Americans," Mr. Jargowsky said.

In 1990, 30 percent of poor blacks lived in high-poverty neighborhoods. Ten years later, the proportion was 19 percent.

Mr. Jargowsky said the changes were generally beneficial.

No social policy was ever more disastrous than the warehousing of the underclass in massive public housing projects, which did nothing more than concentrate pathologies to the degree that they seemed like normalcy. The movement of the poor back into the mainstreams of American life can only be to the good. Both housing and school vouchers seem like effective means to achieve this end. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 21, 2003 9:48 AM