
An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Paths Out of Poverty - MichaelCORS
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/upshot/an-atlas-of-upward-mobility-shows-paths-out-of-poverty.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&abt=0002&abg=0
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markvdb
The article often mentions school disctricts and their effect on house
pricing. I've heard the same thing time and again from relatives in Palo Alto.

It's awkward for me to see how the US restricts free choice between public
schools. In this part of western Europe, except for queueing on enrollment and
capped numbers, you just go to the school your parents decide to put enroll
you at.

If understand correctly, the public school monopolies in the US are because
mostly local taxation and much less higher level (state or federal) taxation
funds local schools.

It might be interesting to see an experiment where kids from let's say East
Palo Alto can go to schook in Palo Alto if their parents want so....

~~~
rayiner
You can't understand America, especially any topic having to do with housing
or schooling, without understanding our deep-seated racial conflicts. Pull up
a public school profile in any U.S. city that has a large black or hispanic
population. Odds are that on the first page, it'll tell you exactly what the
racial mix of the school is (so parents can quickly figure out where not to
send their kids).

Washington, D.C.
[http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Ballou+High+School](http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Ballou+High+School)
(bottom right)

Chicago:
[http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?SchoolID=610268](http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?SchoolID=610268)

Baltimore:
[http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/cms/lib/MD01001351/Centr...](http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/cms/lib/MD01001351/Centricity/domain/8783/schoolprofiles/085-FortWorthington-
Profile.pdf) (race statistics on page 1, test scores on page 3).

Philadelphia:
[https://webapps.philasd.org/school_profile/view/1200](https://webapps.philasd.org/school_profile/view/1200)
(second item after "enrollment").

School choice means the prospect of black and hispanic families sending their
kids to primarily white schools, and that is a non-starter in even the most
liberal communities. San Francisco used to have a very progressive policy of
assigning schools at random so that wealthy people couldn't congregate in one
neighborhood and send their kids to the local school. Even that city had to
dismantle that policy a couple of years ago.

~~~
tptacek
There's a difference between demographic info being available for a school and
it being on the front page of the school's site. Before clicking through your
Chicago link, I tried to find a CPS school site that made demos easy to find,
and came up empty. You've hotlinked to the fact sheet for a specific school to
make your point, which isn't entirely fair.

I live in Oak Park, and my kids go to OPRF, which is 53/37
white/(latino|african-american). Minorities are (thankfully) overrepresented
in the school. Oak Park (a/k/a/ "The People's Republic Of Oak Park") isn't
conservative, and the (tiny) village is a haven for well-off white families
who want to live close to the city without sending their kids to CPS schools.
Lower-income families rent apartments along Austin Ave, or Section 8 houses on
blocks like mine, and manage to get their kids into Oak Park schools without
too much trouble.

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stevenkovar
I'm curious how things change when moving becomes a routine; i.e.: moving 5+
times whilst growing up—to the point where it becomes an expectation of the
child. This was the case for me, and I notice I grew up with a much different
perspective on life than those who were raised in one city or those who were
transplanted just once.

~~~
pjonesdotca
Talk to any military brat. I was in 11 schools by 10th grade so I learned a
whole different set of lessons from the vast majority of my "civilian" peers.

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analyst74
One thing I could not quite understand, is why people stay in poor area with
little to no opportunities?

Some people may want to stay close to family and friends, especially when they
need their support. That is understandable, but then it's their own choice,
and they are probably content about it.

For those who are unhappy about their situations, why don't they just move?

~~~
JPKab
Feel free to go into the site and search for "Northampton County, Virginia".
The site points out that it's one of the worst counties in the country to be
either poor or middle income. I spent a big chunk of my childhood there, and
attended the horrific public schools there.

I was one of the very lucky ones, and I'm now living in an affluent suburban
community, watching my son attend the kinds of schools that I'm assuming you
got to attend. (I'm assuming this by your comment, which shows someone who
almost certainly doesn't have a deep understanding of poverty or areas with
high poverty.)

Notice that the site has a median rent listed for this county of a little over
$300. Think about that: You are somebody who lives in a place with a $300
rent, which means that a given landlord, when presented with the income of the
area's renters, can only fill a unit if they charge $300 a month. Yes,
everyone is that poor. Work is few and far between, incomes are very low, and
savings are non-existent. How can you save when you can barely get by?

So without savings, how do you finance a move to a place? How do you pay a
security deposit that is, by itself, triple your current rent, plus the first
month's rent, assuming you landed a job in this richer area?

The education offered sucks, period. I went to college on a scholarship, and I
was completely unprepared for my classes compared to the other students. I had
to work over 30 hours a week while in engineering school to pay my
rent/food/books/etc, which put me at a disadvantage compared to my peers. On
top of that, I didn't have the knowledge base my peers had. When I graduated
high school in 1999, my school only had 4 computers with internet connections
for a student body of roughly 900. This is typical of poor, rural schools. How
could I have learned to program like my peers from the DC suburbs?

Your characterization that these people have made a choice to not move
suggests that they ever had a choice to begin with. Most of them don't, and
your comment, to people like me who had to claw ourselves out of the trap,
smacks of self-righteousness and contempt.

~~~
analyst74
I grow up in a poor family in China, I know what's it's like to only eat cheap
food, or choose to walk instead of bus to save money. I'm not going to make
comparison though, as being poor in China is probably very different from
being poor in America.

I've also met a fare share of poor people here in Canada. And most of them
choose to be so, by choosing work in arts and music, spending money on parties
and drinks, or not follow the worker bee lifestyle and work as little as
possible. I don't look down upon them, as they seem to enjoy their chosen
lifestyles. Although I have a feeling that the poor you are talking about
might be different from what I see.

I've also met many poor immigrants who are not as fortunate as I am, working
as taxi drivers, manual labours and/or minimum wage jobs. But most of them
don't seem to be seriously stuck, as in that they could afford to move to a
different city if there is no job locally.

So I'm sorry that my question smacks contempt, which is half-true (for people
who don't work hard and blame others for their misfortunes). But I am also
ignorant about what it's like to be poor in America. Is it really that much
worse than Canada?

~~~
JPKab
For the poor, the United States is a far, far worse place to live than Canada.

Canada has a comparatively large welfare state, and far better public schools.
In the United States, public schools receive the majority of their funding
from the local town/county taxes. This means that a poor person who lives in a
poor area will attend a bad school.

I could go on, but take a look at the data. On basically any metric, the US is
a much worse place to be poor than Canada.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In the United States, public schools receive the majority of their funding
> from the local town/county taxes. This means that a poor person who lives in
> a poor area will attend a bad school.

The conclusion is true, but the reason given is not true in many parts of the
United States: e.g., California (and I don't think California is the only
state with similar rules) requires equal per-pupil public spending statewide,
so difference in local tax bases within the state do not affect spending (but
schools in poor areas have unique challenges that increase costs, and often
get less additional support from outside sources to supplement their equalized
funding, so they still end up disadvantaged.)

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yaur
Looking at some semi-rural areas where I have family and there isn't much
opportunity this looks like it is strongly correlated with whiteness, which
makes me wonder how much of this is a matter of minorities having less
economic mobility.

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WaffleMan

        They have elementary schools with higher test scores, a higher share of two-
        parent families, greater levels of involvement in civic and religious groups
        and more residential integration of affluent, middle-class and poor families.
    

While income inequality may appear influenced by race, it's empirically shown
to be cultural, predicated on whether individuals believe they have control
over their lives and are responsible for their actions. Culture often
masquerades as race, but is easy to distinguish: Are members of the same race
who grew up with a different set of values as successful as members of other
races with those same values?

The acts of those in Baltimore may feel justified, but they are only feeding
the culture that contributes to their lack of upward mobility.

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bcheung
Austin is considered one of the worst neighborhoods to raise kids? That
doesn't seem right. It is one of the most affluent cities in Texas.

~~~
todd8
The article's interactive map has a misleading caption: "The Best and Worst
Places to Grow Up ..." The map is based on the upward mobility of children
from poor families, not all children.

The article's map doesn't have enough resolution to separate Austin from the
surrounding areas well. Although downtown Austin is in Travis county, the
county is over 1000 square miles in size. The top rated Austin school district
is very very good and is only 31 square miles out of the 1000. Furthermore,
the Austin area includes Williamson county too and there are several
additional good school districts with schools in Williamson county as well.
Westlake High School, located in the Austin area, is ranked by Newsweek at 117
among all public high schools nationally and an admission based magnet school
in the Austin Independent School District is number 8 in the same ranking.

