The trend has been as swift and sweeping as it has been overlooked. In 1990, Americans in poverty were 14 percent likelier to live in a city than in a suburb. By 2012, they were 22 percent likelier to live in a suburb. In D.C.’s suburbs, over the first 15 years of the millennium, the number of people in poverty grew by 66 percent. Elsewhere, the explosion was even bigger. Sun Belt cities led the way. The increase was 126 percent in Atlanta’s suburbs; 129 percent in Austin’s; 139 percent in Las Vegas’s. The Midwest wasn’t far behind: 62 percent in Cleveland’s suburbs; 84 percent in Chicago’s; 87 percent in Detroit’s. The suburban poor are likelier than their urban counterparts to be white and to own their homes, but otherwise they’re demographically similar, according to a study from the Brookings Institution. Two-thirds of both groups work, about 15 percent have a disability and nearly half are in deep poverty, below 50 percent of the federal poverty line.
Source: Poverty is moving to the suburbs. The war on poverty hasn’t followed. – The Washington Post