Is sprawl holding back social mobility in America? Paul Krugman didn't mince words yesterday in a follow-up to a post he wrote soon after the Detroit bankruptcy was announced. In that initial blog post, he compared Detroit to Pittsburgh and concluded that it wasn't just the loss of manufacturing jobs that hurt Detroit -- it was also the dispersement of jobs away from the city core. Yesterday, in a column titled "Stranded by Sprawl," he took the argument further, arguing, "Sprawl may be killing Horatio Alger."
Take Atlanta, says Krugman. Though its population is on the rise, a study released last week shows that Atlanta is one of the worst places in the country for social mobility: The chances that a kid born in the bottom fifth of the income ladder could move to the top fifth are one in 25.
Krugman writes that researchers have found "a significant negative correlation between residential segregation — different social classes living far apart — and the ability of the poor to rise." He elaborates:
And in Atlanta poor and rich neighborhoods are far apart because, basically, everything is far apart; Atlanta is the Sultan of Sprawl, even more spread out than other major Sun Belt cities. This would make an effective public transportation system nearly impossible to operate even if politicians were willing to pay for it, which they aren’t. As a result, disadvantaged workers often find themselves stranded; there may be jobs available somewhere, but they literally can’t get there.
They may not be insolvent, but when it comes to the lack of social mobility, Atlanta and other sprawling metros are already following the same pattern as Detroit.
