Geographic Poverty
A rush came over me as I gathered my thoughts for this chapter. I realized that I had plenty of first-hand experience with the topic, though I had not given it a moment’s notice over the decades.
I grew up as a military brat, following my father from one location to another in Italy. I went to sixth and seventh grades in Naples, and the first two years of high school in Sigonella, Sicily. In both cases, we lived in the local communities, so my experiences were enhanced by making more friends within the city than I made at school on the base. That gave me a much broader view of things than I would have had if I had grown up solely in the US.
My understanding of geographic poverty came from retuning home to Cheshire, Connecticut from junior year in high school. Until then, money had not been an issue. Now, it was. Living again in the house I grew up in made the transition easier than it might have been. Familiarity with the town helped as well.
Cheshire is a small bedroom community of above average wealth. Seventy plus percent of the residents were professionals -- doctors, lawyers, accountants, company executives and the like. My father, still working in Italy, was a GS-9 in the US Civil service. In effect, my mother was now a single head-of-household with three dependent children.
There was much that I didn’t understand about that. Nor did I understand some facts of life. I look back on that as a blessing. We were latch key kids (ages 15,10, and 8) but sociologists had not yet coined the term. Our mother was for all intents and purposes single-head-of-household. We were poor but we didn’t know it. We were often broke. Mom’s job at a retailer paid a commanding $1.10/hr. After paying taxes and $2/day for taxi fare, she raised three children on $5/day. Even in 1960, that was a far cry from the $5/day Henry Ford paid his workers in 1914 (equivalent to $3.23 in 1960, $25.26 in 2013).
There’s an important distinction between poor and broke, best expressed by the comedian/activist Dick Gregory, in his autobiography, NIGGER, published in 1964. He expressed it this way (I paraphrase): We were never poor but we were always broke. Broke is a temporary condition. Today you have money, tomorrow you don’t. If you're poor, you're poor all your life.
That’s how it was with us. I remember being broke on graduation day. An announcer told the gathering of proud parents that photos of the class of ’63 would be available for the low price of $1.75 each. Between myself, my mother and my older brother, we couldn’t muster the cash. The following day, when my fellow grads were at the beach, I was at work full time at a farmers’ exchange.
Geographic poverty in our case was a blessing. We were broke in a rich town. In spite of the cash flow issues, my siblings and I attended first rate schools, where academics held sway. The buildings were well maintained and safety was not an issue.
I never gave it much thought until tonight, but things could have been different. We might have lived in one of the adjacent communities, like Meriden or Waterbury, two blue-collar towns slowly fading into oblivion. Meriden for decades was known as the Silver City, the home of International Silver and a number of smaller silversmiths. By the 1960s, most of the manufacturing had moved away. Waterbury was known for its brass mills and foundries. Today, it’s major industry is healthcare. Both cities were edgier and families had markedly different views on education than Cheshire.
Cheshire was always seen as the rich town by residents of surrounding communities. For example, I remember meeting a young man about my age in a coffee shop in Meriden one Saturday. He told me his father was taking the family out for a treat that night -- pizza at an Italian restaurant -- in Cheshire. Meriden had plenty of good pizzerias scattered around town but this was different. They were going upscale.
I cannot overemphasize our good luck. To put it into perspective, and selfishly to make my point, I include below the most recent rankings of selected Connecticut school systems. Note that the scores of students in Cheshire are significantly better than those of Waterbury and Meriden. Those two cities are virtually light years ahead of the impoverished cities of Bridgeport and New Haven (the home of Yale University). The very exclusive city of Fairfield (median household income $114.000) has excellent scores, in line with Cheshire. It abuts Bridgeport (median household income $40.000) yet has nothing in common with it.
When I settled into a real job after a tour of duty in the US Navy, I sold industrial chemicals in southeast Michigan for a Connecticut-based company with a branch office in Ferndale, just a mile outside the Detroit city limits. Over the course of ten years I relocated my family three times. I raised my children in Novi, MI, then Cheshire, CT, before settling in Troy, MI. All three cities were upscale with excellent schools and well-educated people. Contrast this with Detroit and surrounding blue collar communities, and it’s not unlike Cheshire, an oasis in the desert. We were fortunate.
Our children grown and on their own, Tennessee became home. Having now lived in rural Tennessee, I better understand the significance of geographic poverty. It goes beyond financial wealth. It impacts communities’ visions, expectations and values. It influences what people talk about, where they place their emphasis, how they express their expectations for their futures.
One gets a pretty clear picture of by an individual’s outlook by how he defines his locus of control. If a person has an internal locus of control, he sees himself in control of his destiny. He knows that whatever happens, he was the one that achieved or failed -- his way.
With an external locus of control, the person feels that everything that happens in his life was a function of outside forces. He accepts responsibility for nothing. “I’m in this fix because they didn’t..(fill in the blanks).” “My homework was lost because my dog pissed on my computer.” “I can’t make it to class at 1:00 p.m. because my car battery’s dead (even though it’s only 9:00 a.m.)”
While many kids see school as a way out, others see themselves locked in forever. In my days as a student, I and most of my peers took college track classes. Fewer rural Tennessee teens hold expectations beyond high school. Some limit their expectations for economic reasons. Others, influenced by their families’ views on education, don’t see it as a path out. Rather, for them it’s more time in another prison.Their visions, familial and community, don’t include personal growth. A job will do -- any job.
Knoxville, an oasis in the desert of East Tennessee, is an up and coming community. It has terrific political leadership and a welcoming atmosphere. The city appreciates everyone, including those who live a bit on the edge, like artists and creatives, LGBTs, and minorities. Like progressive communities in other states, Knoxville understands that inclusivity is the key to growth and prosperity.
Not all areas of the city are equal. South Knoxville and East Knoxville are noticeably less well off, to be sure, than West Knoxville. WIth solid, visionary and non-partisan leadership, however, they are not ignored by the City. If anything, the City is actively working to embrace the areas and raise living standards and quality of life for all. It will take time. For the moment, geographic poverty remains evident. Lower performing schools, higher crime rates characterize the landscape. Businesses along main traffic arteries have less eye appeal, and attract a different clientele.
Geography has an affect on where jobs are located, the time it takes to get to and fro, and the means by which to get there. People in poorer communities find better work in the richer parts of town. The challenge is to get there, and leave in a timely fashion, in keeping with bus schedules. Time away from family must include transit time, and it can be measured in hours per day.
These issues came to the fore as I read about the 30 Million Word Gap*. In the article, authors Risley and Hart disclosed the gap in learning between the poor and those who are not. Children of the poor hear fewer words from birth to school age. As a result, they enter school some two years behind in language development. Most never catch up. Children of the poor are deprived of parental presence, love, encouragement and guidance by virtue both of the hours they work, and the hours spent in traffic.
Children of the poor are exposed for the most part to others who are also poor, with similar skill deficiencies. They lack exposure to so many things: human contact, words and word association, socialization and, yes, food. In the United States, 23% of school age children live under these conditions. Few politicians consider this a problem. At a recent town hall meeting in Dandridge (pop. 2800), state representative Jeremy Faison was asked about the 30% of his constituents who are poor. His reply, "I take care of mine. They should take care of theirs." Faison is not alone among Tennessee legislators. Tennessee is not alone, either. Of the states with the highest percentages of long-term unemployed, Tennessee is just one of seven whose Senators voted in D.C. not to extend unemployment checks.
Geographic differences amplify economic differences, the result being a huge portion of our nation left out of the running for the American dream.
A new geographic segregation is slowly and inexorably occurring, one that will disenfranchise ever larger numbers of Americans, even those who are yet holding on to a middle class lifestyle. That segregation is the Super Zip Code.
This geographic element is the wedge that will separate the top ten percent of Americans the rest. In the process, we will become, as Irish Writer George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “separated by a common language.” We will also be separated by vision and values, as expressed in words we all know, but whose meanings will differ so widely that we will never find common ground.
Few people I speak with, almost all educated and many of them professionals, have ever heard of Super Zip Codes, but they are real and they are increasing in number. They are emblematic of future divides within the nation.
http://www.businessinsider.com/map-americas-super-elite-live-in-these-zip-codes-2013-12
Super Zip Codes are areas where the elite live, work and play. They are zip codes that abut each other as increasing home and land values have led to the emigration of the less affluent to make way for more who are ‘like us’. The elite are young upwardly mobile professionals, married to other upwardly mobile professionals who want to live near others ‘like themselves’. Within these geographies one soon finds the best of everything -- the best schools for their children, the best restaurants, the best bars; the best churches, the best arts and cultural centers, the best... everything. A good description of this phenomenon is recorded in
People living within the zip codes no longer have a need to travel outside the area, that can encompass square miles. The elite need not see the middle class, let alone the poor. Their children may never come into contact with children of lesser stature.
The implications of super zip codes are many, and they are staggering. First, in total the populations of super zip codes will never account for more than five percent of the US population. And, since they are self sustaining, the elite residents and their progeny will never encounter the 95-99%. Their visions of the world and their expectations of the world will be at odds with the balance of their fellow Americans. The phrase ‘Fellow Americans’ will take on a new meaning: People like ‘US’. As a friend of mine once said, “There ain’t no ‘We’ in ‘I’.”
The 95-99% may never meet the elite but their lives will be impacted by them, often to their detriment. We see it today, in tax breaks that favor them. In 2013, 53% of all government expenditures favored them. We see it today in the number of public services that are being privatized, to their benefit. We see it in the way banks and financial institutions whose collapsing private ventures took public monies to save themselves, leaving the ‘others’ to fend for themselves.
People in different worlds behave differently. The French behave nothing like the British, who have very little in common with the Chinese, or various nations in Africa. Likewise, people in different parts of a state experience life differently, as do people is adjoining neighborhoods. People in Bean Station, TN, have little in common with adjacent Morristown, and even less in common with Tennesseans in Knoxville.
So it has always been among Americans within America, proving the adage ‘The United States is not united’.
Super Zip Codes
. The state employee's union estimates savings of $6 to $10 million, according to Troy Jackson, the state senator who introduced the bill." http://www.drugs.com/news/maine-residents-can-now-import-foreign-pharmacies-45561.html
