Income Divisions in Upstate Metropolitan Neighborhoods

In earlier posts, I wrote about income and racial separation between the residents of upstate cities and suburbs. The data showed that residents of upstate cities saw sharp increases in poverty levels between 2000 and 2013, while city populations became increasingly diverse, primarily because of the loss of white residents. The data also showed that […]

Income Inequality and Minority Group Status in Upstate Metropolitan Areas

In an earlier post, I pointed out that residents of upstate metropolitan areas actually have incomes that are somewhat higher than the average for other cities in the so called “rust belt” – cities located in the old manufacturing regions of the Northeast and Midwest. But, the largest upstate cities – Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse […]

Single Parents and Child and Family Poverty in Upstate Cities

In an earlier post, I showed that very high percentages of people with children under 18 lived in poverty in upstate cities, and that the percentage increased significantly between 1999 and 2013. While a few rust belt cities, like Flint and Detroit, Michigan had higher levels of poverty among people with children, poverty in cities […]

What Critics of Central City School Performance Ignore

Students attending central city schools perform very poorly on statewide tests. For example, in Upstate New York, less than 20% of city students received passing grades on the 2015 Grades 3-8 New York State Statewide Assessment. In Syracuse, only 8.7% of students passed, while in Rochester, only 6.1% passed. In Buffalo, 13.4% of students passed. […]

Why the Poor in Upstate Cities find it Difficult to get Good Jobs

With almost one third of upstate city residents and one half of upstate city families with children under 18 living in poverty, compared with less than 10% of suburban residents and families, it is helpful to understand how their demographic, social and educational characteristics, and how they differ from more affluent residents of the counties […]

The Crisis of Poverty in Upstate New York Cities

For many years, concerns about Upstate New York’s relatively slow economic growth have revolved around the idea that the region’s performance has been subpar, and that by altering government policies, by reducing tax burdens, or by spending money on economic development projects, performance could be improved. But these analyses ignore the fact that Upstate’s economic […]