Inequality And New York’s Subway

newyorker.com

20 points·jsm386··4 comments

Amazing visualization!

Although, I will say this. As much inequality as you see in New York, at least everyone rides the same train. I take Metro North every morning and you see poor minorities going to jobs in Harlem riding the train next to rich white guys getting off at Midtown. So much better than where I grew up in Northern Virginia where rich people freak out about public transit because they're worried about poor people being able to get to where they live.

It still says something that an economy capable of producing entire parts of town with a median income of nearly $200K doesn't do much for those living on under $20K a year.

New York does a lot for people living on under $20k/year. That's why those people live in New York--because of the very generous public services. The NYCHA houses 400,000 people in 180,000 apartments. The Section 8 program assists another 620,000 people, and accounts for 8% of the city's rental apartments. The average family has a median income of $22k/year.

The city's public housing projects aren't the nicest in the world, but that's endemic to any such project. The actual facilities aren't bad. They are comparable to the apartments my (upper middle class) family in Bangladesh live in (which was to me a stark illustration of the 'top 5% of Indians live like the bottom 5% of Americans' phenomenon).

Doesn't do much? They get free/cheap rent for life, basically. The city doesn't do much for households making $50k. It's a tough place to be middle class.

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