Quote of the Day, August 6, 2012
Rising income inequality has led to a growing number of Americans clustering in neighborhoods in which most residents are like them, either similarly affluent or similarly low-income, according to a new study detailing the increasing isolation of the richest and the poorest.
A report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center said the percentage of upper-income households situated in affluent neighborhoods doubled between 1980 and 2010, rising to 18 percent. In the same time frame, the share of lower-income households located in mostly poorer neighborhoods rose from 23 percent to 28 percent. The percentage of neighborhoods that are predominantly middle class or home to a wider mix of income levels shrank.
“The country has increasingly sorted itself into areas where people are surrounded by more of their own kind, if you will,” said Paul Taylor, the Pew Center’s director of demographic trends and a co-author of the report, adding that the majority of neighborhoods in the country are still mostly middle class or mixed.
– an excerpt from Carol Morello’s Washington Post piece on how a new Pew Research Center report reveals that rising inequality has led increased segregation by income.
