New Report Tracks 40 Year Period of Concentrated Poverty in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Posted by Damika Webb on September 15th 2011

A Lost Decade: Neighborhood Poverty and the Urban Crisis of the 2000s is new report for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies written by Rolf Pendall, Elizabeth Davies, Lesley Freiman, and Rob Pitingolo. The report shows that one in 11 residents of U.S. metropolitan areas live in a neighborhood of concentrated poverty. The 2000s represent a significant setback with progress in the 1990s as the number of people in high-poverty neighborhoods increased by nearly 5 million since 2000. African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians continue to be substantially more likely to live in high-poverty neighborhoods than white non-Hispanics, and people who live below the poverty line-especially minorities in poverty-are at special risk of living in high-poverty neighborhoods. The report also includes important analysis on the variations in concentrated poverty trends across different metro areas, the increasing racial/ethnic heterogeneity of many high poverty neighborhoods, and an analysis of the racial and economic trajectories, since 1970, of the “original ghetto” neighborhoods.

Read the full report here.