Policy by the Numbers: Visualization: The Atlantic's Class-divided Cities Series

Visualization: The Atlantic's Class-divided Cities Series

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

In January, Atlantic editor Richard Florida kicked off a series of posts called the "Class-divided Cities." Each post includes an analysis and map visualizations of socio-economic polarization within different areas of US cities.This divide is seen most clearly in where members of each class live. A recent report from the Pew Research Center found that residential segregation between upper- and lower- income households has risen in 27 of America's 30 largest metros over the past several decades. Compounding this polarization between rich and poor neighborhoods, the share of middle-income neighborhoods has declined substantially.[...]To get a better sense of the scale of the divide in American cities, my research team at the Martin Prosperity Institute — relying on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey — plotted and mapped the residential locations of today's three major classes: the shrinking middle of blue-collar workers in manufacturing, transportation, and maintenance; the rising numbers of highly paid knowledge, professional, and creative workers in the creative class; and the even larger and faster-growing ranks of lower-paid, lower-skill service workers. For the next few weeks, I'll be exploring the various divides in some of America's largest cities and metros.The series began with New York, and yesterday, San Francisco became the 11th.