Ferguson is forcing us to look at American suburbs with a new eye. Not only are American suburbs growing more diverse, they are also getting poorer.
From Brookings,
…the dramatic demographic transformation of Ferguson from a largely white suburban enclave (it was 85 percent white as recently as 1980) to a predominantly black community (it was 67 percent black by 2008-2012).
But Ferguson has also been home to dramatic economic changes in recent years. The city’s unemployment rate rose from less than 5 percent in 2000 to over 13 percent in 2010-12. For those residents who were employed, inflation-adjusted average earnings fell by one-third. The number of households using federal Housing Choice Vouchers climbed from roughly 300 in 2000 to more than 800 by the end of the decade.
Bloomberg has some great stats on how the poor population growing twice as fast in U.S. suburbs as in city centers.
Apt. 11d 