Why It’s So Hard to Get Ahead in the South

 

Shamelle Jackson moved here from Philadelphia, hoping to find work opportunities and better schools for her four children, who range in age from two to 14. Instead, she found a city with expensive housing, few good jobs, and schools that can vary dramatically in quality. “I’ve never struggled as hard as I do here in Charlotte,” Jackson, 34, told me.

 

Jackson isn’t alone. Data suggests that Charlotte is a dead-end for people trying to escape poverty. That’s especially startling because the city is a leader in economic development in the South. Bank of America is headquartered here, and over the last two decades the city has become a hub for the financial services industry. In recent years, Charlotte and the surrounding area, Mecklenburg County, have ranked among the fastest-growing regions of the country. “Charlotte is a place of economic wonder in some ways, but it’s also a city that faces very stark disparities, and that increasingly includes worrisome pockets of real deprivation,” said Gene Nichol, a professor at the UNC School of Law who has completed an extensive report on local poverty. Some of these disparities bubbled to the surface in September, when protests erupted after a black man, Keith Lamont Scott, was shot and killed by police.

----

Chetty and colleagues say that there are a few key factors that play into where people struggle with economic mobility. These areas tend to be more racially segregated, have a higher share of poverty than the national average, more income inequality, a higher share of single mothers, and lower degrees of social capital, which means people interacting with others who can help them succeed, according to Nick Flamang, a predoctoral fellow with the Equality of Opportunity Project.

 

Full article below:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/south-mobility-charlotte/521763/

 

The south sucks.

Charlotte is a hole

The Uncool Crescent of Columbus is actually just like this, except the issues are multicultural. Personal networks full of jailbirds, grandmas on pension from public sector jobs and other unemployed/underemployed young people. Not knowing anyone connected to white-collar or skilled work.

well true, the south is the south, but when you read the article the more glaring problem is the one of single parent mothers, which is a complete national disaster in the african american community and aint so great in white culture and in others these days either. black folks actually had higher marriage rates than white folks until the late 1960s, but you sure wouldnt believe that today. good news is its an addressible problem on at least two fronts. one is drug law reforms, which are happening, at least to some extent. the other yet to be changed is in the realm of pro-active tax reform and getting rid of marriage penalty taxes. there is nothing harder or more of an impediment to getting ahead than single motherhood.

Single mothers are a problem, but if we're lamenting the demise of traditional family roles then we also have to account for the disappearance of solid jobs for the fathers.  Unfortunately when men can't provide, women don't necessarily want them around.  It's not always a case of fathers being absent by choice.

How about not having kids until you know you can fully provide for them? I've never understood why someone who is barely able to scrape by themselves decides it's a good idea to bring a child into the world.

^Social norms in poor areas are completely different than what you are used to. When everything in your universe revolves around having kids, feeding them and all that from day 1 it completely changes your worldview. When I was little I thought about monster trucks all the time, in my teens I thought about dirt bikes and race cars all the time. In my 20s it was beer, bands and street bikes. I never thought about kids. In poor areas it's kids, kids, kids all the time. No hobbies... kids.

How about not having kids until you know you can fully provide for them? I've never understood why someone who is barely able to scrape by themselves decides it's a good idea to bring a child into the world.

 

At state universities on up (definitely not talking about community college) about half of the students are having sex on the regular but the number of girls who become pregnant and drop out is almost zero.  That's true in Southern state universities...I know because I went to one. 

 

One of the most tragic stories I remember from my time living in Tennessee was working for a woman who had a child at age 16 on purpose so that she could move in with a crappy boyfriend who was a less crappy human being than her father, who had been raping her and her sister since they were about 12.  She was one of the smartest and emotionally level-headed women I've ever known, but obviously is the one person out of a thousand who survives that sort of situation.