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Houston Leading the Nation in Growing Trend of Income Segregation

Posted byHoumanitarian
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(Mike Tolson, Houston Chronicle)
Roll back the clock to 1980 and Greater Houston looks quite a bit different. Some of the tall buildings, meandering toll roads and shiny professional sports venues aren’t there, of course, but of more significance is the absence of many places that Houstonians now call home.

As the metro area’s population doubled over the past three decades, extensive developments and master-planned communities popped up or expanded to serve those with the means to buy spanking new homes on the suburban fringe. As for those of little means – many of them immigrants, legal and otherwise – they increasingly crowded into older, low-income neighborhoods abandoned by residents who lost jobs or found better housing elsewhere.

The result, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, is a dubious honor: Houston leads the way among the nation’s 10 largest metropolitan areas when it comes to affluent folks living among others who are affluent, and poor living with poor. Pew said residential income segregation is increasing across the country and especially in Texas and the Southwest.

Of the nation’s 30 top metro areas, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas command the medals podium in Pew’s Residential Income Segregation Index. In Houston, the percentage of upper-income households in census tracts with a majority of upper-income households increased from 7 in 1980 to 24 in 2010. Likewise, low-income households in majority low-income tracts jumped from 25 to 37.
(Read more of the story at the Houston Chronicle)

REPORT LINK:
The Rise of Residential Segregation by Income (Pew Research Center)

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