I have been searching all over the internet and still cannot find out what Dayton's current poverty rate is. Does anyone know?

 

I heard that Dayton's poverty rate has dropped over 3.5% as of late.

No idea.  PigBoy should have the answer to that.

Should I?  All I know how to find is the 2000 census number, which is 23%.

 

But I can look for more recent stuff.

Dayton's poverty rate is 102%.

 

Seriously, I don't know.  And I didn't want to know.  But now I want to know.

According to the other thread on Ohio's best mid-size cities economies, Dayton has a poverty rate of 23%. That is pretty high.

That's what happens when you have affluent suburbs.  Call it the "Donut" effect.

Some historical geographical trends courtesy of the Bruton Center @ the University of Texas @ Dallas.

 

Windows on Urban Poverty

 

for the purposes of these maps:

"Based on the federal poverty line.  For example, in 2002, the poverty level was $15,260 for a family of three and $18,400 for a family of four.  Any person living in a family with income below the poverty threshold is designated as poor.  The poverty rate for a neighborhood is determined by dividing the number of poor persons by the total population of the area, excluding some individuals who live in college dorms, nursing homes, and other group quarters"

 

Starting in Daytons "last good year", 1970, at the end of the long postwar boom.  Deindustrialization in Dayton began in 1971, with the shutdown of NCRs manufacturing operations here. Population started to plateau in the metro area too, after 1970....

 

 

Then 1980.  There was a spatial expansion of poverty, and some areas became more concentrated as poverty pockets.

 

 

Then 1990.  The first wave of de-industrialization was over by this year, with large employers gone (Dayton Tire, McCall Printing), or downsized (NCR, GM).  Poverty has also expanded and continued to concentrated

 

 

A suprsing improvement in 2000.  Poveryt pockets became "less poor".  Why is that?  Perhaps the 1990s was a really good economic time where people where being lifted out of poverty....I know the unemployment rate was fairly low in Montgomery County in the mid to late '90s.

 

....or, another theory, the neighborhoods that used to be poverty pockets where largly abandonded by 2000 and housing for poor folks demolished or condemned, and the remaining people left in these areas where pensioners or making enough to be over the poverty line....perhaps a bit of gentrification  or redbuilding in some limited cases.

 

 

Yet, the long term look is sobering...30 years of "Economic Structural Adjustment" (as the World Bank would call it), results in an increase in poverty across the board in Montgomery County ...poverty increased in many census tracts, including suburban areas like Fairborn, Kettering, Riverside, Trotwood, Harrison Twp, etc...as well as within Dayton...the increases where quite small in many suburbs but its suprsing to see any increase at all in some of these areas.

 

 

So, perhaps not a good trend here.  Long range, Dayton and its sububs has seen overall increases in poverty, probably due to the collapse of a living wage as the area de-industrialized and higher paying jobs are replaced with lower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bingo.

 

Along with the actual "wealth" moving to Warren and Butler counties.  Meaning, West Chester, Springboro, and "wonderful" brand-spankingly new Monroe.

Cool maps. Thanks for the link to that awesome website Jeff. I never knew it existed. I think everyone should know about that website. It has the best maps I have ever seen relating to population and poverty. You should start a thread on SSP about those maps. :-)