by MarkJ » Fri 25 Sep 2009, 10:40:44
A major issue in many local regions is that our suburban job, housing and commercial growth really doesn't benefit the uneducated, poorly educated, unskilled, semi-skilled and transportation challenged job seekers.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]A Rising Tide of Poverty
Tech Valley's Economic Gains Bypassing Inner Cities
The census numbers are clear. The contrast is stark. Increasingly, the Capital Region is developing into a place populated by haves and have-nots.
While suburbs and many city neighborhoods have mostly prospered, some inner-city sections of Albany, Schenectady and Troy are like doughnut holes -- up to 10 times poorer than areas surrounding them, according to U.S. census data.
And experts say there has been no trickle-down effect for poorer households here. Urban poverty is rising while upstate growth centered on Tech Valley continues.
Economic integration is so lacking that roughly a third of Albany, Schenectady and Troy residents currently survive on less than $20,650 a year, the federal poverty level for a family of four, according to recent census estimates.
"The numbers keep climbing," said Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Institution, a social service agency in Albany. Oberlander saw Trinity's food pantries in Arbor Hill and the South End serve 4,700 people last year -- a mind- number, he said.
In Albany's West Hill, impoverishment rose from 21 percent 31 percent from 1980 to 2000, census data show. One South End tract jumped to 45 percent poverty during that time.
That compares to less than 10 percent poor in adjacent Bethlehem. Bethlehem's median household income was $63,168 in 2000, compared to $16,158 in the South End neighborhood between Madison and Fourth avenues.
Exacerbating the problem locally, experts say, is a severe housing shortage.
"There's a real big disparity between what people make and what the rents are," said Maria Markovics of United Tenants of Albany. "A lot of people just aren't making it."
Investors who might make a difference aren't coming into areas like Schenectady's impoverished Hamilton Hill, observers say.
Instead, scores of two-family homes have been chopped up into smaller apartments to make quick profits for nonresidents, Schenectady Mayor Brian U. Stratton said. "Absentee landlords are our worst nightmare."
But if, as some economists argue, a "rising tide lifts all boats," why haven't the Capital Region's inner cities benefited from wealth that surrounds them?
Exchanges are rare, experts say, and often restricted to suburban commuters driving through poor neighborhoods on their way to work.
"There's really no connection between the suburbanite and inner city," said Robert Jones, associate professor of economics and chair of the Economics Department at Skidmore College.
Suburbanites "don't shop, except for lunches. In the older days, the big department stores were downtown."
Trickle down economics creates many unskilled jobs, but these jobs are often filled by suburban teens, college students and young adults still living at home, many of which work multiple part-time, temporary or seasonal jobs.
) to say it out loud in the press.
