U.S. cities are now as unequal as those in Africa, according to a new UN report (via Planetizen).
Major U.S. cities including New York, Washington, Atlanta and New Orleans have levels of economic inequality that rival cities in Africa … The most balanced city in the world is Beijing, with the most egalitarian cities on average to be found in western Europe … “The authors (of the study) find that though the cities in the United States of America have relatively lower levels of poverty than many other cities in the developed world, their levels of income inequality are quite high,” the report said.
Another new study on inequality in U.S. urban areas by Ed Glaeser and colleagues (via Mark Thoma) sheds light on this, finding that urban inequality which was previously reflected poverty concentration now reflects the increasing concentration of wealthier, higher-skilled populations in certain urban areas.
What determines the degree of inequality across metropolitan areas? Twenty years ago, metropolitan inequality was strongly associated with poverty, but today, inequality is more strongly linked to the presence of the wealthy. Inequality in skills can explain about one third of the variation in income inequality, and that skill inequality is itself explained by historical schooling patterns and immigration. There are also substantial differences in the returns to skill, related to local concentrations in different industries, and these too are strongly correlated with inequality.
This jibes with our analysis in Flight of the Creative Class which found that highly innovative and creative regions were among the most unequal.
America’s economic geography is becoming spikier and more unequal both within as well as between regions.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Hi Richard,
Great post – I think your research should be of interest to international relations buffs and grand strategists as well. You’ve already made the comparison to Friedman but your city centric view of the world is one that other IR buffs should grapple with as well.
I did a mashup and comparative analysis of your maps against those of Thomas Barnett’s – the author of the Pentagon’s New Map since you are both talking about (in part) the implications of globalization of the distribution of power and influence.