Dear Neighbor,
My last newsletters were about how we're losing affordable housing despite building more units, and about how inequality of income, wealth and power is the cause of the housing affordability problem.
This one is about the effects of inequality on food, health, education, and especially housing. I'm trying to make these more bite-size. Next:
- vote no on question 5
- wealth and inequality in Massachusetts and Somerville
- what is to be done.
INEQUALITY AND FOOD
Robert Reich explains how fewer people are eating at MacDonald's. It's not because they prefer Sarma.
INEQUALITY AND LIFE EXPECTANCY
The Boston Public Health Commission reported in 2023 that In one Back Bay neighborhood, the life expectancy was nearly 92 years. In Roxbury, it was less than 69 years.
Median household income in the Back Bay census district was $141,250 median household income for the Back Bay census district, but $41,211 for the Roxbury tract. The Back Bay tract was 82% white, while the Roxbury neighborhood was 87% people of color.
This year, the Public Health Commission reported that "while overall life expectancy in Boston has increased, it has declined for Black residents." Here's the report.
INEQUALITY AND HOUSING
I continue to write about housing.
This graph speaks for itself. Source is here.
Fast Company reports that "America's housing market is splitting in two, and one group of buyers is getting left behind. Wealthier buyers remain active while affordability pressures increasingly push entry-level shoppers out of the market entirely."
However, the Globe has reported some cases of over-exhuberant building of super-expensive houses in Boston and Nantucket. In both places, owners of multi-million dollar homes put them on the market for less than they paid. That doesn't mean that rents in middle class apartments are going down though. What's going on in Massachusetts and our district? More on that soon.
INEQUALITY DRIVES SEGREGATION IN EDUCATION
Standardized test scores correlate highly with family income and education. When they are used to rate and rank schools and school districts, they can increase school and neighborhood segregation. A 2018 MassINC report (no longer online) attributed segregation and concentration of poverty to increased publicity about test scores. Jack Schneider wrote in the Atlantic that "Believing they are fleeing bad schools, or securing spots in good ones, middle-class parents have inadvertently exacerbated segregation."
This year, MassINC reported that "At the neighborhood-level, Massachusetts residents are among the most segregated by income in the United States. More concerning still, Massachusetts has experienced the nation’s largest increase in income segregation since 2020. This divide extends beyond neighborhoods and into our public schools. Only Connecticut and New Jersey have higher levels of income segregation in public education."
Song of the Week: "I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister." by Jim Garland, miner and organizer in Harlan County, Kentucky, recorded by the Almanac Singers in 1941.
Stay in touch!
Pat Jehlen