Governing the New Geography of Poverty in Metropolitan America

Abstract

This article contributes to the research on the new geography of poverty by examining how low-income residents fit into the governmental patchwork that defines metropolitan America. Our analysis pays particular attention to two features of local governments: their size and their status as incorporated municipalities or unincorporated areas. Relying on Census data, we study these patterns for the five largest metropolitan areas in each of the five Census-designated regions of the country (25 metros total) from 1990 to 2012–2016. We show that the distribution of poor people across jurisdiction types, and their concentration in particular jurisdictions or places, has changed over time. In the older metros of the Northeast and Midwest, poverty grew in smaller secondary cities while it expanded in unincorporated areas in the South and in larger secondary cities in the West. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these shifts for studying local governance and poverty.

The Suburbanization of Eviction: Increasing Displacement and Inequality Within American Suburbs

“…The challenges of suburban poverty may be compounded as poor households are increasingly sorted into poor places. Suburban municipal governments may be ill equipped to provide social services or alleviate rising levels of material hardship (Mattiuzzi and Weir 2020;Allard 2017;Simms 2023). Conversely, some towns, struggling to fund municipal services because of an eroding tax base, turn to punitive fines and fees to raise revenue.…”

Beyond Urban Displacement: Suburban Poverty and Eviction

“…The effects of suburban evictions may be particularly acute. Local safety nets are weaker in suburban areas and nonprofits are fewer and further between (Allard 2017a; Mattiuzzi and Weir 2020). To take one example, homeless shelters are far more numerous and accessible in cities than in suburbs, which begs the question: where do the suburban evicted go?…”

“…Because of the historic concentration of poverty, public and nonprofit service providers have been focused on central cities and have not kept pace with sociodemographic changes (Allard 2009; Murphy and Wallace 2010). Fragmented suburban municipal governments may be ill-equipped to handle poverty governance and to intervene to reduce evictions and prevent homelessness (Allard 2017a; Mattiuzzi and Weir 2020). On the whole, we favor the former set of explanations in our first hypothesis.…”