2021/05/12 by Scott W. Hegerty, Hegerty, Scott W.
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #FOS: Economics and business #General Economics (econ.GN) #Housing Market and Economics #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies #Urbanization and City Planning
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2105.07824
openalex publication_date 2021/05/12 · openalex created_date 2021/05/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Decades of deindustrialization have led to economic decline and population\nloss throughout the U.S. Midwest, with the highest national poverty rates found\nin Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. This poverty is often confined to core\ncities themselves, however, as many of their surrounding suburbs continue to\nprosper. Poverty can therefore be highly concentrated at the MSA level, but\nmore evenly distributed within the borders of the city proper. One result of\nthis disparity is that if suburbanites consider poverty to be confined to the\ncentral city, they might be less willing to devote resources to alleviate it.\nBut due to recent increases in suburban poverty, particularly since the 2008\nrecession, such urban-suburban gaps might be shrinking. Using Census\ntract-level data, this study quantifies poverty concentrations for four "Rust\nBelt" MSAs, comparing core-city and suburban concentrations in 2000, 2010, and\n2015. There is evidence of a large gap between core cities and outlying areas,\nwhich is closing in the three highest-poverty cities, but not in Milwaukee. A\nset of four comparison cities show a smaller, more stable city-suburban divide\nin the U.S. "Sunbelt," while Chicago resembles a "Rust Belt" metro.\n