In relation to this blog, I thought her article was a great follow up to Richard Florida's January 3rd NY Times article that asks if life is better in red states, which I commented on in my initial post on this subject. Florida's article offers the benefits offered by the policies employed by both red and blue states, as well as the inherent issues that associated with each, including the high cost of housing in blue states and the sprawl and low tax revenue often seen in red states.
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Semuels' focuses on Gwinnett County, a suburban county centered about 25 miles northeast of Atlanta. (As an ATLien studying transportation and urban planning, it is bittersweet that so many of these sorts of analyses and articles seem to be set in Atlanta). Semuels swiftly shifts in and out of profiling some of Gwinnett County's families and individuals in poverty and provides statistics about poverty at the national, local, and regional levels. Perhaps most poignant of these stats is the fact that "between 2000 and 2011, Atlanta's suburban poor population increased by 159 percent while the number of poor in the city remained essentially flat." In an ironic and sad twist, life has come full-circle for those who decades ago fueled "white flight" in part to find homogeneic, gated-community harmony. This irony is emphasized by a quote from the article, when a resident claims that she "doesn't let the kids go outside," a statement more typically associated with the "perils" of the inner-city.
From a policy standpoint, the most important points made in the article stem from the fact that "many of these communities lack the infrastructure, safety-net supports, and resources to address the growing needs of a poor population." Inner cities by nature have denser street networks than suburbs. This tighter spacing, often in a grid network, makes it easier to provide health-care, education, and resources, as agencies and non-profits can have more efficient routes to see clients and provide benefits. This closer spacing also makes it more likely that they will be near others they know, trust, and can lean on.
Semuels' provides reasons as to why poverty rates in the suburbs have been increasing. These include housing costs, and a disconnect between where jobs and housing are located, the skills needed to qualify for these jobs, the wages those jobs provide, and the transportation options available to access them. With gentrification, housing prices increase and good paying jobs follow millennials closer to the core. This leaves the poor with higher housing costs and often a dearth of jobs for which they are qualified (educating the poor is another blog post entirely), which means they must travel great distances to jobs in the suburbs.
How do these individuals access these jobs, given that in 2013 AAA estimated that owning a small sedan costs $7,000 annually? Yes, owning a car is expensive and often consumes more of a household's budget than estimated, when the cost of fuel, which although currently relatively cheap has been more expensive much of the last decade, maintenance, insurance, registration, and the actual cost of the vehicle is included. These costs impact the poor and middle class even more significantly. Most of you reading this probably grew up in a suburban environment. Just consider the time, coordination, and uncertainty needed to keep a job in your suburban hometown if you didn't own a car. There might be a bus route nearby, but you will likely have to walk through a neighborhood with poor connectivity (see this, this, and this as to why the suburbs negatively impact walkability), or wait a long time for your bus due to long headways. Said simply, most of the time, it is nearly impossibly to move reliably within suburbs using transit. Thus, if you can't afford a car and have to walk or take transit, you likely spend hours each day commuting to a relatively low paying job.
Why is transit service typically so poor in the suburbs? The reasons are numerous, but for the sake of simplicity let's boil it down to the following:
- Suburbs typically have poor connectivity, decreasing the ridership catchment at transit stops
- Many suburbanites are not as familiar with using transit and have grown up almost in an almost exclusively autocentric household
- Suburban counties have less comprehensive funding mechanisms to support transit
The last bullet brings this post's update full circle. Semuels' article shows that the number of poor in the suburbs is increasing, which means that elected officials have to new challenges to solve and the economy in these locales is impacted in different ways. The ancestors of those who long-ago moved to the suburbs to escape the mid-century inner city blight seen now find themselves again adjacent to pockets of poverty. Florida's NY Times article relates as elected officials must make decisions (red v blue) to solve new and unfamiliar problems. Semuels article The Atlantic provides a relevant and personal foray into the results of these decisions.
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good weekend!
