Although metropolitan areas have always attracted the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor, new data shows that city dwellers at different income levels are less likely to live in the same neighborhood.
New York City has the third-highest level of economic segregation in the U.S., according to an analysis by the Atlantic Cities and Sweden-based Martin Prosperity Institute of income levels of residents in various cities. High levels of income disparity were also found in four Texas cities, along with Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Denver, and Memphis, the Atlantic Cities reported.
Income segregation was measured by calculating the share of low-income households that are located in neighborhoods with a majority of low-income households in comparison to the share of upper-income families who live in neighborhoods with a majority of upper-income households.
Upper income households were defined as those with annual incomes of $100,000 or more; lower-income households as those with annual incomes of $34,000 or less. The lower the number, the less extreme the income disparity. For example, Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL was the metro area with the lowest income disparity. It garnered an index score of 0.247.
The joint study also found that income segregation was higher in cities where blacks and Latinos make up a greater share of the population. Surprisingly, income inequality was only weakly correlated with how affluent a city is. [The Atlantic Cities] — Angela Hunt