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Pennsylvania is a good illustration of this. It was a prosperous state that now has lots of problems. Back when it was exporting steel around the world, that kept (mostly white) folks in the middle of the state working, but also the many Black communities in the port cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington (in DE). Globalization destroyed those jobs leaving the highly visible poverty in those cities, but also the less visible poverty in the rest of the state. And my modest assertion is that the racial diversity of the consultants doing that outsourcing doesn’t matter and is besides the point.

It's not just Pennsylvania, it's like that in most states. The further you get from the cities the poorer people get. Of course there are some exceptions like smaller tourist rich towns or oil rich towns like in Montana/Texas/Oklahoma, but those are pretty rare.

I don't really get your point, I wouldn't call it a dismissal. Not all areas of white poverty were once "vibrant".