A PRRAC & Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies Report (September 2011). By Rolf Pendall, Elizabeth Davies, Lesley Freiman, and Rob Pitingolo.
Excerpt: “This report tracks the stubborn persistence of concentrated poverty—poverty rates over 30 percent—in U.S. metropolitan areas over a period of nearly 40 years. Neighborhoods with poverty rates above 30 percent have been recognized as places with few opportunities for employment and education, high levels of disinvestment and crime, and meager civic participation. Living in such neighborhoods over extended periods reduces the life chances of children, whether their families are poor or not. The report also looks more deeply at a subset of urban neighborhoods that can be characterized as the “original ghetto,” extensive areas whose cores were almost exclusively nonwhite and poor in 1970. The report shows that the nation continues to suffer from racially and economically divided cities, and this segregation undercuts efforts to reach important goals for health, education, employment, and civic engagement.”
