Poverty in the United States has historically been perceived as mostly an urban phenomenon, while acknowledging some widespread pockets of rural poverty. In the popular imagination, we rarely associate poverty with the suburbs, but a recent report from the Brookings Institution goes a long way toward dispelling this myth. Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings issued a report titled “The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008.” Authors Elizabeth Kneebone and Emily Garr made an in-depth analysis of the location of poverty across the United States, with particular attention on the nation’s 95 largest metro areas. The authors used a classification scheme that divided the nation into four geographic categories, or community types, including primary cities, suburbs, small metropolitan areas, and non-metropolitan areas. Their major finding: by 2008, suburbs were home to the largest and fastest-growing poor population in the country.
The authors began by identifying the 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) based on 2007 population estimates produced by the U.S. Census Bureau. Within these metro areas, the researchers defined primary cities as those that are listed first in the official metropolitan area name, or those listed either second or third in the official name which have an estimated population of 100,000 or more. Suburbs were defined as the remainder of the MSA population outside the primary city or cities. In the Cincinnati-Middletown MSA, for instance, Cincinnati is the lone primary city since Middletown's estimated population in 2007 is only 51,000. The MSA suburban population is calculated as the residual of the MSA total population minus the population of the City of Cincinnati.
In five of the top 100 metro areas, the city listed first in the MSA name had an estimated population under 65,000, falling below the minimum reporting standards for American Community Survey (ACS) one-year estimates. These five metro areas thus had no ACS poverty estimates for 2007 or 2008 and were removed from the city/suburb analysis; instead, they were added to the category of small metro areas. The remaining 95 largest metro areas included a total of 132 primary cities. The community type called “small metro areas” constituted the remaining 266 MSAs across the country. The fourth type, non-metro areas, included all counties that are not part of a metropolitan area.
Between 2000 and 2008, the impact of two separate economic downturns can be seen as the suburban poor population increased by 25%, two times faster than total suburban population growth over that same time frame. As shown in Figure 1, this 25% increase in the suburbs easily outpaced increases in the other community types, and was nearly five times higher than the percent change in primary cities (5.6%).
Figure 1. 2000-2008 Percent Change in the U.S. Population in Poverty, by Community Type
While the 95 largest metro areas housed 60% of the nation’s poor both in 2000 and 2008, the distribution between primary cities and their suburbs shifted significantly. In 2000, 30.6% of the poor resided in primary cities and 29.5% were in the suburbs, but by 2008 the comparable shares stood at 28% in cities and 32% in suburbs (see Figure 2.)
Figure 2. Percent Distribution of the U.S. Population in Poverty by Community Type, 2000 and 2008
The rapid spread of poverty to the suburbs of large metro areas is due in part to the fact that overall population growth was strongest in the suburbs. It’s also essential to note that, while more poor people now live in the suburbs than in other community types, the suburbs still have the lowest poverty rate and primary cities the highest. Although the poverty rate is highest in primary cities, the 2000-2008 percentage point increase in primary cities is smallest among the four community types measured. Figure 3 displays the poverty rate for each community type in 2000 and 2008.
Figure 3. Poverty Rate by Community Type, 2000 and 2008
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 and ACS 2008 data
Adding some local context to the national picture, the Cincinnati MSA experienced an increase of 52,000 in the number of poor persons between 2000 and 2008. Figure 4 shows that the suburbs surrounding Cincinnati accounted for virtually the entire increase in the MSA poor population. Those numbers translate to a 45% increase in the Cincinnati metro area’s suburban poor, far higher than the 25% growth in suburban poor nationwide, and five times higher than the population growth rate in the tristate region’s suburbs (8.5%). As dire as the Cincinnati MSA poverty numbers seem to be, it could be worse. In the Cleveland MSA, the suburban population declined by 1% since 2000, but the suburban population in poverty actually grew by 44%. The Brookings report found that Midwestern cities and suburbs experienced the largest poverty rate increases by far since 2000 among the nation's four regions, reflecting the area’s severe job losses before and during the current recession.
Figure 4. Population in Poverty in the Cincinnati MSA, by Primary City/Suburban Residence, 2000 and 2008
Source: Author’s analysis of Census 2000 and ACS 2008 data
The Brookings report referenced here contributes greatly to our understanding of the geography of American poverty. The release of American Community Survey 2009 one-year estimates later this year will shed even more light on this important trend.
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