Is Detroit the poorest city in America? There’s more evidence that it may be. A study by the Brookings Institution says that metro Detroit has the highest rate of concentrated poverty among the top 25 metro areas in the U.S.
In the six-county southeast Michigan region 32% of the poor live in areas where at least 40% of the population is below the federal poverty line, according to an analysis of census figures by Brookings, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
In 2000, only 9% of the poor in metro Detroit lived in census tracts with a high concentration of poverty That was 10th among the top 25 metro areas. Now, metro Detroit has the highest poverty ranking at 32%, more than twice the rate of areas like Chicago or Houston. The national average is 13%.
