Storms start to move out of Minnesota, continue for western Wisconsin

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Increasingly, the rich are living with the rich, and the poor are living with the poor.

It's a trend known as income segregation, and Richard Florida 

 that it has "troubling implications for the economic mobility of people and the economic health of cities."

The Twin Cities actually buck the trend: The metro area is one of the least income segregated large metros in the country.

Cities have always had some level of inequality and segregation, but the problem is getting worse, Florida said on The Daily Circuit. Metro areas attract the very wealthy because they are incubators of ideas and enterprise and the poor come looking for work. 

5 facts about America's income segregation

1. On average, bigger metro areas have more income segregation.

Due to their size, large metro areas typically have a range of living options, including richer and poorer suburbs, Florida said. Smaller rural areas are less segregated, with people from varied income levels living closer together. 

One caller talked about the mix of incomes in rural Dundee, Minn. 

Rural Minnesotan on lack of income segregation in her town by MPR News

2. The poorest Americans are most segregated in deindustrialized metro areas.

"What that really reflects are hard-hit, more deindustrialized economies like Milwaukee, like Memphis, that have not developed the kind of knowledge economy that the Twin Cities (has)," Florida said. 

These cities typically have what he called a "hole in the donut." The metro's affluent people and businesses abandon the core of the city, leaving a concentration of the area's disadvantaged residents. 

3. The current economic structure is causing larger income disparities. 

A third of American jobs are in the high-paying knowledge sector, while two-thirds of Americans are in lower-paid service, part-time jobs or unemployed. 

"We have to bring up those service jobs," Florida said. 

He said boosting the minimum wage and creating stronger internal career ladders for workers at bigger companies would help bridge that gap.

4. Concentrated poverty is hard to change.

"One thing we've seen in America is these areas of concentrated poverty, whether they be in the urban core or in the suburbs, are kind of immune, resistant to upgrading," Florida said. "They need to be continuously put on the agenda of our local politicians and federal politicians and we continue to need a national urban strategy, which we don't have."

5. The wealthy tend to be attracted to waterfronts, urban centers, transit hubs and knowledge institutions like universities.

When these areas of opportunity and activity become colonized by the wealthy, it pushes the poorer residents out. Those people then have longer commutes to work, less access to jobs and become shut out of professional networks. 

Are there any solutions to end income segregation? Do we need a solution? Leave your comments below.

The Twin Cities actually buck the trend: The metro area is one of the least income segregated large metros in the country.


Richard Florida on what increasing income segregation means for America, and what can be done to increase income diversity in metro areas.

Richard Florida on when the one percent sticks together

Seven Miles Of New York City Streets Turned Into P

Michael Nagle/Getty Images

Richard Florida joined The Daily Circuit to discuss income segregation July 22, 2014. A caller from Dundee, Minn. talked about the benefits of living in a rural area. Listen to the full discussion: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/07/02/daily-circuit-income-segregation 

5 facts about America's income segregation

Go Deeper.

Like this?