It used to be called the American dream. It wasn't much, but the owner-occuppied middle class neighborhood was all American, the place where the sons of mill workers played with management's childen on the local playground. It was a testament to the strength and stability of our American democracy, and a renunciation of the rigid class systems of the European Continent. We were one America after all.
But increasingly America is being divided, not united. The Brookings Insitition tells the story of modern, metropolitan America.
The consistent trend is one of a shrinking proportion of families with middle incomes, and an even faster decline in neighborhoods with middle-income character.
The real relevation of this study is that while America was a solidly middle class nation in 1970, by the millenium economic forces were pulling apart that middle class like a centrifuge.
■ Middle-income neighborhoods as a proportion of all metropolitan neighborhoods declined from 58 percent in 1970 to 41 percent in 2000. This dramatic decline far outpaced the corresponding drop in the proportion of metropolitan families earning middle incomes, from 28 percent in 1970 to 22 percent in 2000.
■ Between 1970 and 2000, lower-income families became more likely to live in lower-income neighborhoods, and higher-income families in higher-income neighborhoods. Only 37 percent of lower-income families lived in middle-income neighborhoods in 2000, down from 55 percent in 1970.
■ Only 23 percent of central-city neighborhoods in the 12 large metropolitan areas had a middle-income profile in 2000, down from 45 percent in 1970. A majority of families (52 percent) and neighborhoods (60 percent) in these cities had low or very low incomes relative to their metropolitan area median in 2000.
■ A much larger proportion--44 percent--of suburban neighborhoods in the 12 metropolitan areas had a middle-income profile in 2000. Yet this proportion fell over the 30-year period, too, from 64 percent in 1970, accompanying a smaller decline in suburban middle-income families. Suburban middle-income neighborhoods were replaced in roughly equal measure by low-income and very high-income neighborhoods.
The results of this study yield obvious political conclusions, but beyond being Democracts we have to recognize the hazards of income segregation as citizens of a democratic nation. How long can a nation built upon the equality of all perserve when the prevalance of social segregation tells a vastly different story? Is segregation performed upon the basis of income (over time, social distinctions or this type are rendered into understanding of social classes) less malicous than that based on race, or just more subtle?
The table below (click on image for full size) shows the how the segregation of neighborhoods by income has far outpaced the decline of middle income families.
One of the principle consequences of income segregration is that high income familes are far less likely to have contact with low income familes than in 1970. This might in part explain the rapid decline of the post war social covenant. It's easier to engage in socially reckless behavior in the workplace when you don't have to deal with the consequences at home. While in 1970 the guy deciding to cut health benefits for workers would have to see the consequences when the neighbor's sick kids keep getting worse and worse, now that reality is out of sight, and unfortunately, out of mind.
So while in 1970 only 34.5% of families earning more than 120% of the median area income (MAI) lived in neighborhoods where the average family income was more than 120% of the (MAI), by 2000 51.5% of this same group lived in these high income neighborhoods. And while 57.2% of these high income familes lived in middle income neighborhoods in 1970, by 2000, only 36.6% of the same group lived in middle income neighborhoods. This is the American elite, the people who hold economic (and increasingly political power) disproportionate to their size, and they are increasingly disconnected from the vast majority of Americans who suffer from the neo-liberal economic policies of the Bush Administration.
At the same time as the rich grow richer, the poor grow poorer. In 1970, 55.2% of familes earning less than 80% of the MAI lived in middle income neighborhoods. By 2000, only 20% of the same group lived in middle income neighorhoods. In 1970, 36.4% of low income families lived in low income neighborhoods. By 2000, 48.3% lived in low income neighborhoods. America is increasingly segregrated by income, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the center city.
In 1970, 45.6% of center city neighborhoods were middle class. By 2000, only 23% of center city neighborhoods had a median income surpassing 80% of the MAI. The percentage of neighborhoods with median incomes 80% or less the MAI skyrocketed from 42.4% in 1970 to 60.7% in 2000. During the same period very low income neighborhoods, those with incomes less than 50% of the MAI nearly tripled from 8.2% in 1970 to 23% in 2000.
Beyond the dire social consequences of income segregration, the rebirth or urban ghettoes and the flight of center city workers to the suburbs has dire environmental consequences. As oil has grown more scare, consumption has increased as a function of the flight or workers from central city neighhoods near their jobs, to distant bedroom communities.
While more fuel efficient cars have been touted as a method to energy independence, what happens if savings at the pump translate into an incentive to flee the city?
Of course calling for a redensification of American cities means at least in part, growing to accept the presence of people who make far less (or if we're lucky far more) money into your neighborhoods. More fuel efficient cars might mean economic salvation for individuals, but economic damnation for the nation as persverse incentives actually increase consumption at the same time as conserving fuel through more efficient vehicles.
And the prospect of an economically integrated community means that those at the top of the economic ladder will be faced daily with the reality of the rob the poor policies they promote. And that has profund political repercussions.