By Alan Berube
Brookings - February 20, 2014
That challenge is front and center in America’s big cities today.
Obama’s speech followed a series of municipal elections in November 2013
in which inequality figured prominently as a campaign issue. Foremost
among these was in New York City, where Bill de Blasio won a landslide
election after campaigning to address what he called a “Tale of Two Cities.” Similar themes were sounded in the successful campaigns and first days in office of Marty Walsh in Boston, Ed Murray in Seattle, and Betsy Hodges in Minneapolis. The “Google Bus”
in San Francisco’s Mission District has shone a spotlight on growing
economic divisions within that city. And income inequality will no doubt
be a central issue in mayoral elections during the next couple of years
in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Inequality may be the result of global economic forces, but it
matters in a local sense. A city where the rich are very rich, and the
poor very poor, is likely to face many difficulties. It may struggle to
maintain mixed-income school environments that produce better outcomes
for low-income kids. It may have too narrow a tax base from which to
sustainably raise the revenues necessary for essential city services.
And it may fail to produce housing and neighborhoods accessible to
middle-class workers and families, so that those who move up or down the
income ladder ultimately have no choice but to move out.
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