Dallas has the highest rate of Child Poverty in the country. These are ‘children’ (0–5 year old’s) that we are failing. If you think that people who live in bad neighborhoods have to because of their own bad choices, then you can at least concede that a child hasn’t even had time to make a bad choice — yet their social mobility is curbed significantly because of where they grow up.

You can scoff at location being that big of a deal in your outcome in life, but it is. Neighborhoods make people who they are more than you think.

Life is easier when you live in certain parts of Dallas. Jobs are closer, there’s less crime, less blight, grocery stores are closer, there’s more WiFi access, banks and doctor’s offices. There is more wealth and less unemployment. More kids go to college, more adults have jobs and there is a visible expectation of success for kids growing up the neighborhood.

Poor kids achieve more growing up in better neighborhoods, regardless of a change in their parents income.

As Opportunity Dallas states in their recommendations:

Research shows that when low-income children are able to access a high opportunity neighborhood, their life outcomes can improve dramatically, which, in turn, helps break cycles of generational poverty. According to research from Raj Chetty, when low-income children can access mixed-income areas, educational outcomes and college attendance improves; they’re more likely to get married and have children with a father present; they earn dramatically more income over their lifetime; and they pay more in income taxes and are less likely to be on assistance.

There is more crime in these area. They spend more of their percentage of income on rent and transportation and they’re likely to have to spend more time getting to work (because jobs aren’t in these neighborhoods), more time going to get food and have less options for healthy food. This time and cost burden compounds. This is why they say being poor is expensive.

Rent / Income Ratios

Great, equitable neighborhoods are vital to a great city. A recent study in Chicago found that just reducing economic and racial segregation to just the median level would generate $8 billion in economic output, reduce the murder rate by 30%, give African American residents $3,000 more per year and raise the number of Bachelor’s degrees earned by 83,000 leading to $90 billion in collective lifetime earnings. And that’s just lowering segregation to just the median level!

Segregation COSTS.