Dems need to reach out to suburban poor

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/story/19828/

Hidden in a Census Bureau report on poverty released in late August is a factoid with significant political and social consequences. Poverty has moved to the suburbs. Or, more accurately, poverty has expanded to the suburbs. Today, 13.8 million poor Americans live in the suburbs – almost as many as the 14.6 million who live in central cities. The suburban poor represent 38.5 percent of the nation's poor, compared with 40.6 percent of the total who live in central cities.

The headlines about the Census report focused on the increase in overall poverty – from 11.3 percent of all Americans in 2000, a twenty-six-year low, to 12.5 percent in 2003. In the last year alone, 1.3 million people fell below the poverty line, bringing the total to to 35.9 million.

The latest Census data remind us that stereotypes about the "inner-city poor" and the "suburban middle class" no longer reflect how we live. As we revise our old images of suburbia, America must change its public policies to acknowledge suburban poverty, and the Democratic Party must change its strategies to reach those with good reasons to like what it has to offer.

[Fovea]

1. And in the burbs

the poor spend more for transportation, and probably have less access to public services than the inner city poor.

[salvorhardin]

2. Uraban poverty, suburban poverty, rural poverty

what's left?

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Then dems should be canvassing food pantries in the suburbs.

I used to volunteer at these places. Women wearing fur coats and driving Mercedes would pull up and fill paper bags with Hamburger Helper and canned peaches. Their families could barely afford to keep their homes and eat.

I think this group would at least read the literature and consider voting democratic, if at least for this election.

[Skidmore]

4. The question is why have the

Dems abandoned them? And we have.

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. They should have thought about that when they disenfranchised thousands

of Detroit voters by switching Caucus polling places without notifying the voters. They outright gave them the wrong addresses. They knew about it weeks in advance...yet did nothing. I was so angered at what happened here in Detroit--and that nobody seems to care. Perhaps they will care during the elections, but too little too late.

[BiggJawn]

6. This is no surprise to me.

When I lived in Indianapolis, I lived on the far-Eastside, in the "burbs", which used to be solid middle-class factory workers. The factorys went away, the home-owners went away (or got old and died, if they were retirees) and absentee landlords bought the houses.

I then moved downtown, with the mistaken idea that I could "fit-in" with the gentrification movement that was seeing former slums declared "Historical Districts" and revitalized.I really couldn't afford to live there, didn't fit in.

My former neighbourhood was declared an "Enterprise Zone" and became a gang/drug battleground. The the area north of the historical district I lived in has been transformed from "Lil' Gansta's Paradise" to another yuppie heaven.

Now I live in a rural area, and guess what? It's happening again. Sure, there's still poor people living in this little town, because it's cheap, but vast tracts of former farm land are being developed as "McMansions" and gated communities.

Just can't get away from these fucking rich ReTHUGlicans!