“If concentrated poverty is a disaster for cities, what’s the cure?”
“If concentrated poverty is a disaster for cities, what’s the cure?”
Model 2: “According to this model, in advanced capitalism, you need a perpetual unemployed class to bid down the price of labor,” Grundy said. “Holders of this view point out that, if you go below a 5% unemployment rate, the cost of labor rises too high to be palatable to businesses. Add to that the more efficient mechanisms for moving capital and the growing stability of other countries since the 1980’s. It is now very easy to move manufacturing capacity from markets where labor costs $7-$11/hr to markets where it costs 40 cents.”
Ohio’s loss of over 200,000 manufacturing jobs in the last six years bears out this analysis. Ohio’s minimum wage is $7/hr, and many workers in this city hold jobs paying well below the City of Cincinnati’s official “living wage” of $10.70. A local resident needs to earn at least $12.85/hr working full time to afford a market-rate two-bedroom apartment here. (National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach, www.nlihc.org).
Model 3: “Another view is the so-called “culture of poverty” theory which holds that poverty persists because of cultural artifacts – it’s a culture that preserves itself like any other,” Grundy continued. “If we contrast immigrant groups which arrive poor, but subsequently prosper, to low-income Americans who stay poor, we see contrasting behaviors. Recent immigrants show economic solidarity. They lend each other money, create informal networks of jobs, and some place a huge emphasis on education. Couples stay together, families delay gratification, they exercise thrift, and they save and invest. These moves fit the capitalistic society very well.”
By contrast, studies show, people who stay poor too often do not marry, do not finish school, and emphasize consumption over saving. Young men, instead of giving each other loans and jobs, shoot each other. “Even here we have controversy over why these behaviors persist,” Grundy added, but one thing is certain: “The worst thing to do to perpetuate the culture of poverty is to concentrate the poor. We can prove that people who grow up in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are less likely to do well than those who do not, even though they start out equally poor.”
Cincinnati’s peril, and some options: Today, 85% of the poor in the Tri-State are concentrated in the City of Cincinnati, Grundy said. “If you add Covington and Newport, it’s probably 95%. As people with resources move away, the residents of the city increasingly are those people who don’t have economic choices. Revenues to the City of Cincinnati have been going down steadily as costs rose, and about two years ago the lines crossed in this city, creating the ongoing budget crises we see today.
If concentrated poverty is a disaster for cities, what’s the cure?
“Save the city,” Grundy answered. “What’s good for the city is also best for low-income people. Like all of us, they want to live in orderly, beautiful, prosperous neighborhoods. I’m reminded of a New York Times columnist who in 2001 referred to gentrification is a bad name for a good thing.”
City Councilman John Cranley’s “Zero Impaction Ordinance,” which outraged affordable housing advocates (including this writer), represents an attempt to reverse the ghettoization of Cincinnati. ”While it’s a very difficult policy to promote, it’s fair to say that the quickest way to induce the communities that surround the city to take their fair share of the poor is for the city to decline to create more concentrated low-income housing within the city limits,” Grundy said.
“The concentration of poverty is bad for the poor and a disaster for our old, historic cities. No one with choice wants to live in a city in which the principle business is the delivery of social services.” Grundy continued, “It’s important to note that the Cincinnati metro region has been using up land at a rate four times faster than its population growth – we are a region flying apart.” Citing the research of regional development expert Michael Gallis, he added, “In the U.S. no region can thrive that lets its historic core city fail. The middle class is deluding itself to think that flight to the suburbs will save it.”