% of USA in middle income neighborhoods in 1970? 65% 2012? 43%

This is a cassandra warning without the need of words.

The following is a fact:

In 1970 two-thirds of families lived in middle-income neighborhoods; by 2008 only 43 percent of families lived in such neighborhoods. At the same time, the percentage of families who lived in predominantly poor or predominantly affluent neighborhoods increased by more than 60 percent. By 2008 nearly one in three families in U.S. metropolitan areas lived in neighborhoods at the extremes of the local income spectrum.

There are many factors that contribute to income segregation, including housing policies, development patterns in the exurbs, and the structure of municipal boundaries in metropolitan areas. But much of the increase in residential income segregation can be attributed to the rapid growth in income inequality in the United States since 1970. As incomes have diverged, neighborhoods have grown more homogeneous. Not only do the rich have more resources than they did 40 years ago, they are far more likely to live in neighborhoods inhabited exclusively by high-income neighbors. The same is true of the poor, who are now much more likely than they were in 1970 to live in neighborhoods where the majority of their neighbors are poor.

I am not here to whine ABOUT the fact of these inequalities, but to ask WHY?

Might it have anything to do with the fact that in 1970 you could work for US Steel, Ford, Kaiser Aluminum, Dow, DuPont or any of the plants which supplied such industries with parts or service for 35 years, have a nice life, NOT force your wife to work if she chose to work by raising a family, and retire decently, whereas today 20,000 apply for 800 jobs at a Hyundai plant for 3rd shift? While these people are doing what? Working at Dunkin’s? Mcd’s? Delivering for a bankrupt Hostess?

Is there a point to being a chemical engineer, or when your entire industry is under interdiction by the EPA at the whim of some gaian freak whose ideology says if your title has the word chemical in it your attitude has been noticed?

Might this have anything to do with the FACT that the highest paying jobs, and their result in neighborhood segregation are in the Washington DC area? Did I miss the influx of Ford plants there?

Just as an inquiry, how large was the political class in 1970? What was their pay relative to workers who MADE THINGS in 1970?

Could these facts be related?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. That would be a paranoid, biased and unscientific conclusion by a unabrowed, troglodytic, dangerous anti elitist.

Sort of like concluding that a little bit of smoking is not THAT BAD FOR YOU, but a lot ….