Poverty Suburbanization: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Analyses

Kenya L Covington

doi:10.17645/si.v3i2.120

Abstract

Today almost every major metropolitan area in the U.S. has experienced rising poverty at a rate that surpasses its urban core (Kneebone &amp; Berube, 2013, p. 2). Poverty suburbanization has accelerated about 3.3 percentage points over the last decade. In this article, factors associated with the growing share of poor in suburbs in the 100 largest metropolitan areas were examined. The analysis sought to address the overarching question: what metropolitan factors are associated with poverty suburbanization? Poverty suburbanization growth rates and temporal changes in metropolitan level factors for 2000 and 2008 are highlighted. Change regression results reveal important macro level and within suburb effects illuminating recent changes in the spatial distribution of the poor. Positive changes in housing affordability appear to open up access to suburban neighborhoods, while metropolitan job decentralization and residential segregation have countervailing effects on the suburbanization of the poor. Findings from this paper suggest that it is appropriate to place the suburbanization of poverty in the contemporary period within an urban political economy framework of urban growth and change.

Highlights

The changing spatial distribution of the poor in U.S metropolitan areas is of particular concern as the suburbs accommodate the greatest share of the poor
Several data sources are required to address the overarching research question: what metropolitan factors are associated with the suburbanization of the poor? First, data for the population characteristics used to develop suburban poverty rates, the description of suburbs by income and fair market rate housing came from the 2000 U.S Decennial Census and the 5-year, 2005−2009, American Community Survey (ACS)
The analysis sought to address the overarching question: what metropolitan factors are associated with the suburbanization of the poor? In this paper, I looked to classic urban theories to explore the suburbanization of poverty within an urban change framework

Summary

Introduction

The changing spatial distribution of the poor in U.S metropolitan areas is of particular concern as the suburbs accommodate the greatest share of the poor. Since this period, the poor have spatially spread out over the urban landscape. The poor have spatially spread out over the urban landscape This includes a spreading well beyond cities and beyond older, innerring suburbs (Frey, Berube, Singer, & Wilson, 2009). The change in the geography of poverty represents a dramatic shift in the landscape as suburbs were once places that the affluent escaped to (Hanlon, Short, & Vicino, 2010; Wilson, 1987); currently suburbs are much more diverse, racially and economically (Howell & Timberlake, 2014; Lee-Chuvala, 2012)

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