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28 Shares By Maria Saporta Metro Atlanta’s profile is changing with a dramatic growth of poverty in the suburbs. Several recent studies point to reality challenging the perception that the poor are concentrated in the central city while the middle-income and higher-income populations are living in the suburbs. “In Atlanta, the poor population in the city held stead between 2000 and 2010 whilethe poor population in the suburbs grew by 122 percent — more than doubling over the course of the decade,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, who was in Atlanta presenting her findings. By comparison, among the nation’s 95 largest metro areas, the poor population in the suburbs grew by 53 percent between 2000 and 2010, while the poor population in cities grew by 23 percent, Kneebone added. The last decade has been tough for the United States as per capita income has declined. Suburbanization of Poverty: This map shows where the largest increases in poverty occurred in the Atlanta region.
As you can see, those areas right outside of the I-285 perimeter in Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett had among the largest poverty rate increases since 2000. You can also see that some cities in exurban counties, like Cartersville, Gainesville, Winder, Monroe, to name a few, had among the largest increases in poverty as well. (click on image). Source: Atlanta Regional Commission’s Neighborhood Nexus Kneebone said that in 2000, the country had 81 million people living at or near the poverty line. In 2010, that number had grown to 104 million people. Yet the growth of poverty in metro Atlanta’s suburbs is outpacing that in other areas.
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The Atlanta Regional Commission’s upcoming “Regional Snapshot” shows that among the 20 most populous metro areas in the county, Atlanta had the highest percentage increase in suburban poverty. Between 2000 and 2010, poverty increased 5.9 percent in the suburbs compared to 1.7 percent in the city. Although suburban poverty rates are still lower than inside the urban core, “poverty rates rose at three times the rate in the first-ring suburbs when compared to the urban core,” according to the Regional Snapshot. “People used to feel safe by getting into their cars and going to a suburban place and getting away from it all,” said Milton Little, president of the United Way for Greater Atlanta. “Now it’s coming to them. The America of 2013 is just a very different place than the America of decades ago.” Unfortunately, most of the nation’s public policy programs and social services have been designed to serve the poor living in central cities.
Suburbs often do not have the services, such as reliable public transit, that exist in more urban areas. “Suburban poverty brings added challenges,” said Kneebone, who is co-authoring a book: that is scheduled to be released in May. In addition to a lack of transportation options, there are big gaps in social services available in suburban communities. There also are the ongoing issues of how to make sure the poor have access to job opportunities and decent schools so that their situations can improve. “It’s not just about people moving to the suburbs,” Kneebone said.
“It’s also people living in the suburbs slipping down the economic ladder. During the Great Recession, the unemployment population doubled in the suburbs.” Lesley Grady, senior vice president of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, summed it up this way. “Poverty ain’t a good thing anywhere,” she said during a panel discussion on suburban poverty that United Way convened after Kneebone’s presentation. For charitable organizations and government agencies, providing services to the poor living in the suburbs adds another complexity to their task during a period of declining resources.
But United Way’s Little said the community has little choice but to respond to the challenge. “We can’t do it in isolation,” Little said. “Part of the work we want to do is to make place irrelevant. It shouldn’t matter you live.” A growth in suburban poverty is a double-edge sword.
On the one hand, it has been proven that having concentrations of poverty in one geographic area unfortunately can trap people into generational poverty through depressed communities, weak schools and few positive role models. Several cities, including Atlanta, have focused their efforts in creating mixed-income communities where the poor will have greater opportunities to improve their place in the world. But on the other hand, dispersing the poor all corners of our region make it that much harder to provide services, whether it be transit, social support and job opportunities.
Local and state governments, already strapped for resources, are having to develop new programs to serve their growing poor populations. At the same time, the needs of the poor living in the central city have not gone away. If there ever were a time to have greater cooperation between urban and suburban cities and counties, it is now. As Kneebone said: “Poverty in cities has not gone away, but now suburbs are struggling along side them.”. Maria Saporta, Editor, is a longtime Atlanta business, civic and urban affairs journalist with a deep knowledge of our city, our region and state.
Since 2008, she has written a weekly column and news stories for the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Prior to that, she spent 27 years with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, becoming its business columnist in 1991. Maria received her Master’s degree in urban studies from Georgia State and her Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Maria was born in Atlanta to European parents and has two young adult children. Unfortunately, the uptick in poverty in counties like DeKalb and Clayton is no surprise.
From a historical perspective, the uptick in poverty in suburban counties like Cobb and Gwinnett could be surprising at first glance seeing as though those counties have a history of being filled with areas with higher-income earners. But upon a closer and more thorough examination, the continued growth in poverty in those traditionally higher-income earning counties, especially in South Cobb below and through parts of unincorporated Marietta, through parts of unincorporated Smyrna and in Southwest Gwinnett through zip codes 30047, 30071, 30093, etc, should come as no surprise with the massive amount of population growth that those counties have experienced over the last several decades. The massive amount of population growth in Cobb and Gwinnett (and Clayton and DeKalb) counties over the past few decades has turned those counties from predominantly-rural exurban/outer-suburban communities into increasingly-urban districts of the inner core of a much-larger Metro Atlanta. A bit of irony, one might say, in the continued uptick in poverty in once-suburban Cobb and Gwinnett counties in particular, is the seeming continued lack of resources to adequately deal with the rising amounts of poverty in those two increasingly heavily-populated counties which have gained maximum political clout as both Cobb and Gwinnett counties have grown to become the 4th-most and 2nd-most populated counties in the state of Georgia, respectively. What is most-concerning about counties like Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Clayton is that they are all effectively heavily-populated, highly-urbanized urban counties with lots of urban issues that are effectively still being governed mostly as though they are still sparcely-populated outer-suburban/exurban counties with very-few issues of elevated poverty or crime levels. Interesting piece Maria. This a complex subject with no one cause, however it is well recognized by city planners and urbanists that as housing stock gets older, affluent people begin to move and as this occurs less prosperous people move in to these neighborhoods.
This is one of the reasons that suburbs sprawl, upper middle class people continuing to move further out to be in homogeneous places. In the case of Atlanta, the outer rings have become unattractive due to traffic congestion and other transportation factors, so we are experiencing the revitalization of in town neighborhoods that were abandoned by the middle class 40-75 years ago. Since housing prices go up in the first ring suburbs, the poor have little choice but to move to 2nd and 3rd ring suburbs that have experienced disinvestment. Not really surprising when you think about it. Cities are in a constant state of dynamism and the disadvantaged have less resources to cope with change. I dare say that Atlanta’s infamous auto-dependency is coming home to roost, in this era of higher oil costs. Here’s an interesting observation in looking at the map: Peachtree City, with its extensive network of alternative transportation, is free of red.
My hypothesis: Even the ‘burbs can be less auto-dependent and therefor economically resilient. Extend a commuter rail line to Peachtree City and watch auto ownership drop even more. These “what if’ scenarios are the sort of thing GASTA is all about. @Bob Munger A part of the rise in suburban poverty rates could possibly have to do with automobile-overdependency. But the most likely explanation for the rise in suburban poverty rates is the continued high rates of population growth, especially in counties like Cobb and Gwinnett where the population growth has been massive and the type of newcomers moving to those suburban counties has changed from predominantly white and upper-middle class to predominantly non-white and working class as upper-middle class whites are not the only people moving into the suburbs anymore.
The change in the type of newcomer moving into suburban counties has especially been evidenced by the areas in Southern Cobb and Southern Gwinnett Counties that have more recently turned predominantly non-white and working class and the areas in DeKalb and Clayton counties that turned from predominantly upper-middle class white to predominantly non-white and working class back through the 1980’s and ’90’s. The rises in suburban poverty have also most likely been affected by the continued effects of the economic downturn that started in the late Aughts, effects that include continued high rates of unemployment and resulting high rates of home mortgage loan defaults and home foreclosures. Also responsible for the rise of suburban poverty rates is the continued out-migration of middle-class whites, currently from ‘inner ring’ suburbs like Cobb, North Fulton and Gwinnett counties to ‘outer ring’ suburbs even farther out in Paulding, Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall, Jackson and Barrow counties on the Northside and from ‘inner ring’ suburban counties like South Fulton and Clayton to ‘outer ring’ suburban counties like Coweta, Fayette and Henry counties on the Southside. The continued out-migration of middle-class whites from inner-ring suburbs to farther-out suburbs and exurbs has in many cases left behind an abundant supply of cheap housing for working-class non-whites to easily move into, like how working-class non-whites have moved in virtually mass numbers into aging apartment complexes in DeKalb, Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett that used to be very-popular with middle-class whites (or ‘yuppies’) back in the 1970’s, ’80’s and ’90’s.
If you zoom in on Peachtree City on the H+T map by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, you will see that Peachtree City is a small yellow area surrounded by blue. This means that it is a more affordable place to live than it surrounds, due (I hypothesize) to it’s low automobile dependency. I will also go out on a limb and suggest that it’s real estate foreclosure rates have been (conversely) relatively low and its home values more resilient, despite the high number of airline industry workers.
Might make for an interesting masters thesis. Kelly Your comments and observation are laden with ingnorance and racial prejudice. White people are not the only population in the metro counties who are considered to be upper or middle class persons. I have lived in one of the popular metro Atlanta communities for almost twenty-five years and understand clearly why my community as well as other metro areas are now noted as lower income communities. It has nothing to do with the “white” flight.
It has a complexity of many factors. Such occurrences as the housing crisis of ’08, loss of manufacturing jobs that have been sent over seas, and an influx of low income families who have section eight vouchers moving into suburban communities that they would otherwise not be able to afford; as well as upper and middle income families moving into higher priced communities. I am African American and my income is considered to be upper income.
I have seen this metamorphosis take place in my community as well as many other metro areas. I serve these families of all races who have moved into my community and many of them are low income families. And while I earn a much higher salary than them, I am no better than they are.
They are just as important than I or any other human being. Race is not the issue here, it a matter of economics! Corporate Sponsor Recent Comments. Who is the “we” and what is “the truth” you mention? Please be specific. – On:.
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(Click On The Diagram To Bring It Into Focus) US Internal Revenue Service figures Lowest Income Tax Filers By Zipcode For Zipcodes With 200,000 or More Filers The purpose of this data IS NOT TO impugn any of the residents living within these zipcodes. My only objective is to put some FACTS on the table for those who are inclined to attack 'The South' as the poor area of the nation as caused by the policies that are present. PLEASE DO NOT try a rebuttal in which you post the WEALTHIEST zipcodes in the nation - as this is not what I am arguing. There is no doubt that large metro areas, particularly in the highly dense Northeast have high concentrations of wealth. I am not arguing this point. MY PURPOSE is to challenge the claim that 'Southern States', via their policy choices render POVERTY. Those who make this claim typically like to reside at the state level of granularity because, per their insidious objectives, it seems to substantiate their claim.
My argument is that upon taking a more granular view of the situation - all regions of this nation have their share of poverty which results from a multitude of factors. Since it is my belief that POVERTY IS THE DEFAULT STATE OF MAN and that only SYSTEMS CREATE WEALTH.a county in sparsely populated Montana that has 10 poor people is not a valid indicator of the general condition of the state. It is far more revealing to inspect the SYSTEM OF WEALTH CREATION in a given area and note the relative positioning that the people who are encapsulated within the boundary have their placement. Either they are positioned to receive great financial reward in comparison to their investment of time and talents OR they receive a relatively low return as the value of their contribution is valued less by the market. With this as a framing those who are interested in POLICY rather than CLASS WARFARE will adopt new language: 'What must we do to change the relative positioning of the people of interest in regards to the value of their skills and labor in the scheme of the system?' Today they are focused on RADICALLY CHANGING THE SYSTEM and upsetting the notion of the MARKET VALUE that is derived by the 'Seller Of Labor'. As such they can only ever have a their party arbiter in the middle of the process, making VALUE JUDGMENTS that are aligned with some arbitrary notion of the worth of the INDIVIDUAL to society while diminishing the messages to the person that HIS WORTH is expressed via his commitment to his own DEVELOPMENT and SALE to which the system will apply value.
If the South is to be condemned as a place where hatred, intransigence and misalignment has rendered POVERTY.what then do you ascribe to the North and other areas that are represented on this list? I take it they represent 'Government work YET TO BE DONE!!!' The use of 'slave imagery' is common in ideological discourse among Black people today. The best way to appraise the veracity of the agenda of the presenter is to distinguish between those images which are used to cajole Black people into 'Ideological Unity' versus those images used to bring consciousness to the sad fact that in far too many cases today - the man holding the gun is a Black man, his disturbed consciousness allowed to fester because the balance of our community organizers are focused on external political affairs. They sell us on the notion that when our people assist their political/ideological external partners in their success that these individuals who suffer from BENIGN NEGLECT will be cured - no longer terrorizing us. In the circular reference that is their struggle - the more damaged individuals that matriculate through the local institutions that they now control per their struggle, the louder their call for continued UNITY and redirection lest our community's long time external adversaries start terrorizing us again. They successfully avoid community scrutiny of their stewardship of our key 'Human Resource Development' institutions.
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