Suburban Poor Doubled in North Texas Since 2007

[cowboyeagle05]

http://parkcities.bubblelife.com/v/3...al_Estate.html

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Note: According to the Brookings Institution, San Antonio, Texas is the only metro area in the U.S. where median income has risen since 2007.

I am fascinated with a little town called Fate, Texas, about 30 miles east of Dallas. Couple reasons why. I think I wrote a story about Fate during the boom about it’s booming population. As of 2011, Fate’s population is 1,476 people. Since 2000, it has had a population growth of 196.98 percent. One reason why may be the cost of homes: median home cost in Fate is $134,500. Still, home appreciation last year has been down negative 2.03 percent. Compared to the rest of the country, Fate’s cost of living is 5.20% lower than the U.S. average. I have heard good things about the Fate public schools. Fate public schools spend $3,948 per student. The average school expenditure in the U.S. is $5,678. There are about 15.8 students per teacher in Fate. The unemployment rate in Fate is 7.80 percent(U.S. avg. is 9.10%).

But, Steve Brown reported[link] that the foreclosure rate is rather high in Fate. And then this very interesting piece by Peter Goodman[link] in The Huffington Post got me thinking about suburbs and their growing problems and poverty. Peter’s piece is comprehensive and well-researched. Basically, he reports on a Brookings Institution study that tells us the number of poor and unemployed is growing in the suburbs, where there are fewer services to help them. And this suburban poverty started budding before the real estate boom/bust.

“Though cities still have nearly double the rate of poverty as suburban areas, the number of people living in poverty in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas increased by 53 percent between 2000 and 2010, as compared to an increase of 23 percent among city-dwellers, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of recently released census data. In 16 metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Dallas and Milwaukee, the suburban poor has more than doubled over the last decade.

The swift growth of suburban poverty is reshaping the sociological landscape, while leaving millions of struggling households without the support that might ameliorate their plight: Compared to cities, suburban communities lack facilities and programs to help the poor, owing to a lag in awareness that large numbers of indigent people are in their midst. Some communities are wary of providing services out of fear they will make themselves magnets for the poor.”

The Brookings Institution study[link] shows median household income change in the top 100 metro areas since 2007. In Dallas/Fort Worth, the median income has dipped by -5.4%. In Austin, it has dipped by 6.6%, but note that little old San Antonio, Texas is the only metro area in the country where median income has actually risen: up 3.1%. Reasons for this may be that San Antonio had a lower median income to begin with, has seen job growth and corporate relocations as well as an influx of wealthy Mexican escaping crime in Mexico.

As Goodman pointed out, people usually move to the suburbs for better schools and home values. Suburbs can be a great place to raise children. How sad that some of these people experience a change in fortune that leaves them worse off in the very place they thought would be nirvana.

I think this is a very interesting point to make about the problem with suburban area style development and its city management style. When a suburban area is blooming and the schools are safe everything is just peachy an example Frisco. Course when that period in every suburban city is over they lack the basic infrastructure to keep things from failing into suburban decay.

[DallasMichael]

Good job to San Antonio for being the only metro to have an increase

[MDE]

I think this is a very interesting point to make about the problem with suburban area style development and its city management style. When a suburban area is blooming and the schools are safe everything is just peachy an example Frisco. Course when that period in every suburban city is over they lack the basic infrastructure to keep things from failing into suburban decay.

As compared to Dallas or Detroit?

People get old and retire. Kids grow up and move away.

That happens in cities and suburbs.


If "the number of poor and unemployed is growing in the suburbs," it's due in part to people moving back to urban areas and redevelopment making them less affordable.

[mjblazin]

Article had some themes that deserve challenges
- it is better to be poor in Dallas city than Frisco? What evidence exists that Dallas support services are any better than a place like Frisco? We are cutting back every day down here.
- what infrastructure is better in Dallas than Frisco that we can fall back on to fight decay? It sure is not our roads system. In the fighting area we have spears, Frisco and its ilk has howitzers.
- all the comparisons are in per cents. A 20 per cent increase in an urban area can be a tidal wave where a 50 per cent increase in Frisco can be 4 thimbles of water becoming 6 thimbles of water.

[AeroD]

Article had some themes that deserve challenges
- it is better to be poor in Dallas city than Frisco? What evidence exists that Dallas support services are any better than a place like Frisco? We are cutting back every day down here.
- what infrastructure is better in Dallas than Frisco that we can fall back on to fight decay? It sure is not our roads system. In the fighting area we have spears, Frisco and its ilk has howitzers.
- all the comparisons are in per cents. A 20 per cent increase in an urban area can be a tidal wave where a 50 per cent increase in Frisco can be 4 thimbles of water becoming 6 thimbles of water.

MJ that is too cute by half. I am sure the residents of Frisco want to advertise, "Hey Dallas poors, come to Frisco!"

[TexasVines]

I would imagine a large part of this is from the stupid idea if subsidizing the "poor" so they can bring their poor choices out of the ghetto they have destroyed and into suburbia to destroy it

one need only look at the flood out of dallas into Plano and then stories about how HUD has raised the voucher rates for section 8 so that the "poor" and their infinite number of poor choices and habits can come destroy an area that was once nice

you know the failed idea that others that work hard are somehow suppose to rub off on the ignorant and dependent and "raise them up"

or how about the story of the suburb in dallas that was sued by "poverty advocates" and other professional poverty pimps because they did not have any areas zoned for "multifambly" housing........who gives a damn what business is that of anyone's if people don't want to live around apartments and other crap

if suburbs were not sued into having to allow this crap the poor could be right where they belong in the inner city hell holes they have destroyed for years

people moving from oak kliff did not destroy oak clivv......the idiots that moved in afterwards destroyed the place......just like they will destroy wherever it is they take their section 8 voucher to next.......sadly poverty advocates are now forcing that on suburbia instead of living with it themselves in their urban utopias of workability and super "successfulness"

the poor should move into victory park and the new museum tower when they go vacant and into the stoneleigh as well

[homeworld1031tx]

NYTimes picked up on the buzz

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us...ml?_r=1&ref=us

PARMA HEIGHTS, Ohio — The poor population in America’s suburbs — long a symbol of a stable and prosperous American middle class — rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations.

[gshelton91]

I would imagine a large part of this is from the stupid idea if subsidizing the "poor" so they can bring their poor choices out of the ghetto they have destroyed and into suburbia to destroy it

one need only look at the flood out of dallas into Plano and then stories about how HUD has raised the voucher rates for section 8 so that the "poor" and their infinite number of poor choices and habits can come destroy an area that was once nice

you know the failed idea that others that work hard are somehow suppose to rub off on the ignorant and dependent and "raise them up"

or how about the story of the suburb in dallas that was sued by "poverty advocates" and other professional poverty pimps because they did not have any areas zoned for "multifambly" housing........who gives a damn what business is that of anyone's if people don't want to live around apartments and other crap

if suburbs were not sued into having to allow this crap the poor could be right where they belong in the inner city hell holes they have destroyed for years

people moving from oak kliff did not destroy oak clivv......the idiots that moved in afterwards destroyed the place......just like they will destroy wherever it is they take their section 8 voucher to next.......sadly poverty advocates are now forcing that on suburbia instead of living with it themselves in their urban utopias of workability and super "successfulness"

the poor should move into victory park and the new museum tower when they go vacant and into the stoneleigh as well

If you did even the smallest amount of research before you post then you would know that DHA doesn’t hand out enough of those vouchers to make even a 1% change.
It amazes me that you can't see the very simple reasons this is happening. Those being that as housing in the suburbs get older they get cheaper per/sq ft relative to the city. Also, we are taking down all the low rent housing near downtown and putting up new much more expensive apartments that the poor can’t afford.
It’s really a very easy cycle to follow. For apartments it is faster and easier to follow. First 15 years most apartments can hold their own with new products… eventually they lose their luster and start going for less money-- That may last for 20 to 30 years… Then they get so outdated that they can’t even attract the working poor.
Inner City Dallas is at the end of the cycle in the last few years we have taken down thousands of low rent apartments… Richardson is about middle of the cycle very little “new” product still exists… Plano is just starting to see the poor move in and Frisco is next.
It’s not about Socialism it is about free market.

[Lakewooder]

Actually the schools in Frisco are vastly overrated. They get a lot of credit because they are new and mostly white. Plano schools are actually better but they have gigantic classes ( I personally dislike) which is opposite from Frisco. Plano is making news as its demographics change and people are upset with school board decisions. The super resigned and there are shouting matches on the evening news..familiar? Also Richardson was in the news this week because their SAT scores are slipping and demographics changing...

[MDE]

August 2010:

Frisco ISD is the largest district in Texas to obtain an exemplary rating without using special features the state provides to help districts bump up an additional rating level.

...The state can rate a district’s performance among five subgroups: African American students, Hispanic students, White students, low social economic status students and all students combined. Frisco ISD’s diversity among students qualifies it to be measured by the state in each of these groups on each subject tested (English language arts, math, science, social studies and writing).

To be exemplary, the district must have 90 percent of students meeting the standard in each subgroup on each one of the tests. The district’s students must also meet a 95 percent completion rate and have 1.8 percent or fewer dropouts in seventh and eighth grade. Frisco ISD missed the exemplary rating last year, because it did not meet the completion rate.

The absolute standard exemplary rating, awarded to 72 Texas school districts, puts Frisco ISD within the top 6 percent of districts in the state. While Frisco takes the lead in size for this category with 33, 757 students, Allen ISD is the second largest exemplary district with 18,086 students.

“It’s a monumental achievement,” Reedy said. “No district our size has done it using absolute standard.”

http://www.scntx.com/articles/2010/0...date/138fr.txt

[I45Tex]

If you set aside ten minutes, MDE and Vines, read the top post on furia.com lately and we could talk about whether the same thing holds more broadly [ties into post #1] that holds in education.

[Vicman]

Hi, Vines! Let's review a few points:
* Poor people are being priced out of the city
* Poor people have good reasons to move into older suburbs, as they are the next closest option
* It is good policy to make poor people live in older suburbs
* DART and other infrastructure can be expanded (cajole Wilmer and Hutchins to join DART, for instance)
* This has nothing to do with poor people "ruining" suburbs

I would imagine a large part of this is from the stupid idea if subsidizing the "poor" so they can bring their poor choices out of the ghetto they have destroyed and into suburbia to destroy it

one need only look at the flood out of dallas into Plano and then stories about how HUD has raised the voucher rates for section 8 so that the "poor" and their infinite number of poor choices and habits can come destroy an area that was once nice

you know the failed idea that others that work hard are somehow suppose to rub off on the ignorant and dependent and "raise them up"

or how about the story of the suburb in dallas that was sued by "poverty advocates" and other professional poverty pimps because they did not have any areas zoned for "multifambly" housing........who gives a damn what business is that of anyone's if people don't want to live around apartments and other crap

if suburbs were not sued into having to allow this crap the poor could be right where they belong in the inner city hell holes they have destroyed for years

people moving from oak kliff did not destroy oak clivv......the idiots that moved in afterwards destroyed the place......just like they will destroy wherever it is they take their section 8 voucher to next.......sadly poverty advocates are now forcing that on suburbia instead of living with it themselves in their urban utopias of workability and super "successfulness"

the poor should move into victory park and the new museum tower when they go vacant and into the stoneleigh as well