In Wilmington, where about a quarter of the population lives in poverty and many lifelong residents barely make more than their parents, the American Dream has remained just that — a dream.

Wilmington is one of the hardest places to achieve economic mobility in the United States, a new tool from the U.S. Census Bureau shows. Deloras Alexander, who grew up in the Southbridge area, wasn't surprised that people who grow up there tend to get stuck.

She was standing near a group of benches on the corner of A Street surrounded by planters and trees — a "park." Across the street is Dugan's Liquors, a corner store with security bars over the windows and trash on the sidewalk.

Several houses on the street are boarded up and vacant. Elbert-Palmer Elementary School, about a block away, is frequently plagued by adults who stand outside and drink.

Poverty and social mobility: Interactive map shows how Delaware neighborhoods fare

"We used to have community centers," Alexander said. "We had things to do after school."

Now, she said, she doesn't even want her grandkids going to their feeder school. Instead, they go to Odyssey Charter. There, her 5-year-old grandson is learning Greek, Alexander said. He worries about his grandma and wishes she were better off.

"That's my little man," Alexander said, recalling how the little boy recently said to her: "Nana, I have some money here to help you pay some bills."

"I told him to keep it," she said.

Behind her, another Southbridge resident shook her head in disgust.

"I'm not poor," she said, upset that anyone would even insinuate Southbridge residents are.

And she's right. Not everyone in Southbridge is considered low-income. About 30 percent are; some parts of Wilmington are closer to 50 percent.

Mayor Mike Purzycki said the city has taken steps toward improving economic mobility in Wilmington as a whole. For two years now, it has held a Historically Black Colleges and Universities fair for local high-schoolers, connecting nearly 250 students them with more than $1 million in scholarships this year, he said.

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Privatizing the Port of Wilmington will create good-paying blue collar jobs for city residents, he added, while the new 76ers Fieldhouse has created "hundreds of new construction jobs." He also talked about efforts to draw new businesses to the downtown and the Riverfront.

"We are also making progress in the area of neighborhood stabilization — reducing crime and attacking blight — first in West Center City and then on to other distressed neighborhoods," Purzycki said in a written statement. "This effort will pay dividends in the long-term as well as the short-term because a stable place to live is tied directly to a person’s ability to achieve employment and prosperity."

Read Mayor Mike Purzycki's full statement at the bottom of this page.

When you first open the new U.S. Census tool, known as "The Opportunity Atlas," it's hard to tell what you're looking at. It's a massive map, with splotches of blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

When you zoom in, you're looking at household income for people born between 1978 and 1983 to low-income parents in the United States.

In areas that are more red, people who grew up poor tended to stay poor. In areas that are more blue, people who grew up in low-income households are making more money than their parents did.

Isn't that the definition of the American Dream? Being able to achieve upward social mobility through hard work, determination and initiative?

Yeah, 48-year-old Keysha Peak nodded.

She lives in Southbridge, too, which stretches from South Market Street to the Port of Wilmington. According to the Opportunity Atlas, the average 2014-15 income for children born in that area, who are now in their mid-30s, is only $14,000.

In other parts of the city, it ranges from $15,000 to $32,000. If you exclude Highlands and Trolley Square, the highest average household income for the group drops to $26,000 in Canby Park.

About 60 percent of residents who live in Southbridge are employed. About 86 percent of those are from low-income families who have never left Wilmington and 81 percent are minorities, according to the Opportunity Atlas.

Nowhere else in Delaware is there so little economic mobility. It's hard to find many places in the United States where those who grew up in low-income families are making as little as $14,000 a year.

One place is Bethel, Alaska, a rural community with fewer than 6,100 residents. Another is the north side of Pittsburgh. Salaries don't fall that low in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., or Detroit, though they come close.

Depending on the size of individual households, that could translate into living below the poverty line. The federal poverty level for an individual living in the United States is currently $12,140. For a family of four, it's $25,100.

Peak, said: "It seems that people who grow up here get stuck here."

She was standing in front of her great-grandmother's house on South Claymont Street. Now her mom lives there, she said.

Peak left Wilmington for a while but just moved back, into a house across the street.

"It's funny that I'm right back here," she said. "Nothing's changed."

A lot of the people she went to high school with still live in Southbridge, though some have become addicted to drugs and some have died. Many community members also abuse alcohol, she said.

Peak, whose 8-year-old son goes to Elbert Palmer, hopes she can move back out of the neighborhood soon, in part because her son is afraid to go outside or play at the park and has gained 30 pounds due to the lack of exercise.

"These kids, it's horrible in this neighborhood," she said. "They break bottles and curse."

Cynthia Williams, youth coordinator at the Neighborhood House on B Street, described a neighborhood where few families ever leave. Residents tend to own houses instead of rent and pass property down to their children.

Real estate listings show that houses in the neighborhood are valued fairly low or are in pre-foreclosure, which would make it difficult to sell them and get enough money for a new one.

The Neighborhood House has before- and after-school programs and serves about 40 kids at a time. Joanne Parker-Henry, the programs' supervisor, said things are bad all over and refused to condemn Southbridge as a bad place to live.

If she thought in terms of how much better children were doing than their parents "I couldn't be here," she said.

Parker-Henry said her staff instead focuses on helping children realize their dreams.

"If you have somebody that inspires you to do better, you can get out," she said. "That's why we're here."

The Southbridge Civic Association holds events, like Southbridge Weekend, with fun activities for residents of all ages. It was canceled this year due to bad weather, but organizers said on Facebook that they hope to bring it back next summer with a full week of fun events.

Leslie Newman, CEO of the Delaware nonprofit Children and Families First, suggested an approach similar that being taken in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A task force there has identified early childhood development, college and career readiness, family stability and strong social networks as key factors that enhance upward mobility, according to National Public Radio.

Mecklenburg County, where the city is located, has committed to providing pre-K for all children. The city has a $50 million bond issue for affordable housing on the November ballot, and matching private donations could boost the total to over $100 million.

"We need to follow Charlotte’s example of coming together," Newman said, also stressing the value of parent-child relationships.

Children and Families First has several programs for new parents and families, which focus on developing healthy habits during and post pregnancy, positive parenting skills, building community schools, financial literacy and more.

“I believe that the secret sauce is the two-gen approach," Newman said. "It’s the family and the children. We have to have parents be successful, and we have to have kids be successful and we have to help forge the bond between the two.”

The idea is to counteract the effects of so-called adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, divorce, physical and emotional neglect and more. There are also adverse community environments, such as poverty, discrimination, poor housing, violence and others that can have huge impacts on children's future health and well-being.

Even if you have a good home life, you can be impacted by toxic stressors in your community, Newman said.

“We now know that those negative experiences can impact your brain, how your brain looks," she said, describing how some children have trouble as adults trusting and bonding with people. That, in turn, weakens their ability to meet goals, hold down a job, regulate their emotions and more.

“Their brain development is different than a child that lives in circumstances that don’t have that toxic stress.”

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Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.