SF Chronicle on the DEATH of the middle class

An article on how middle-class neighborhoods are now almost all but nonexistent in San Francisco and other American cities.





RICH CITY POOR CITY
Middle-class neighborhoods are disappearing from the nation's cities, leaving only high- and low-income districts, new study says
Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006

Ron Miguel, a retired florist and native San Franciscan, can remember when a middle-class family could buy a home in the city without breaking the bank. But over the decades, he has watched that change.

"When we moved into Potrero Hill 30 years ago, this was an affordable area ... but today I couldn't afford the homes and condos going up a block from me," said Miguel, 75. "You have a situation where the cost of housing is astronomical. It's very difficult for the middle income to survive."

The gentrification of San Francisco's neighborhoods reflects one facet of a national trend: the decline of middle-income neighborhoods in metropolitan America, according to a report released today by the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C.

In other American cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia, what were once middle-class neighborhoods gave way to poverty as middle-income residents departed for the suburbs and beyond, said Alan Berube, a Brookings fellow who oversaw the study. But in San Francisco and across the Bay Area, middle-class neighborhoods are disappearing as the skyrocketing cost of housing forces middle-income families to flee in search of affordability.



A few readers' views on the subject:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=13&entry_id=6394


Gloria Wilcher, Novato
The middle class was and is the backbone of the economic health of
our nation. The poor cannot contribute in taxes, and the rich are
sheltered. As the middle class goes into decline, so goes the wealth
and health of our nation. What a shame.



Jim Fong, Foster City
The average Joes who voted for Bush are the ones getting hurt by
his economic policies. Little did they know Bush was going to use
their own ropes to hang them. It's at the point where you either
move up, or you slide down. Sadly, we are moving from a class
system to a caste system.






I've yet to hear a single republican propose a solution to this problem, or even acknowledge that it is a problem. :mad:

sadly, many of those average Joes will still stand behind the Texas Turd

Spending some time in Midland in one's youth before going to Andover, Yale and Harvard, then buying a toy ranch as an election-year prop does NOT make one a Texan.

Cities compete to attract wealthy residents who can pay taxes. The middle class is not as important unless they want to buy $300,000 homes they cannot really afford. Lower income people are seen as complete undesirables unless they are young hipsters from the "creative class" that are starting out in their first apartment and like to spend disposable income in the bar/restaurant districts.

Cities have their own interests that do not necessarily match those of the people who live within them. That is how the thinking goes. It's not in a city's interest to attract middle class (what's left of that class) or lower class residents.

On edit...
Wow. I just realized that I'm currently in a class with the person who authored the study this article is based upon. He is a fellow student.