Income is S.A.'s great divider

Census tracts in Bexar County and surrounding counties shaded based on income, with $49,221 being the median household income for this area in 2010. Census tracts in Bexar County and surrounding counties shaded based on income, with $49,221 being the median household income for this area in 2010. Photo: Mike Fisher Photo: Mike Fisher Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Income is S.A.'s great divider 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Over the past 30 years, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas have grown into the most economically segregated cities in the country, a Pew Research Center study released Wednesday says.

Upper-income people in San Antonio and its environs are more likely to live among themselves than in any other major U.S. metropolitan area. It ranks third at the other end of the scale, with 38 percent of low-income residents concentrated in areas where a majority are likewise poor. Houston and Dallas came in just behind San Antonio in both metrics.

The study puts a Sun Belt face on the problem of economic segregation, which long has been associated with aging industrial cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Those and other Rust Belt cities were edged out by cities in the South and Southwest, which the study's researchers attributed to large population increases.

In the past decade, Texas grew faster than any other state in the nation, adding more than 4 million people. About half of those came from other states and countries, primarily to fill low-skill, low-wage jobs.

“If you take and look at an area that's had relatively little growth ... they're going to likely have less of this kind of segregation than are areas that have large numbers of new residents and new immigrants,” said Steve Murdock, a Rice University professor and former state demographer.

The implications of increased economic segregation are wide-ranging — affecting economic development, education and other public policies.

It already has begun to color the political debate in Texas when it comes to tax policy and what role government should play in society.

“The detriment to the wealthy living among themselves is that they have less and less understanding of the real-life problems faced by the poor, what it means to be poor,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

Conversely, those trapped in poor neighborhoods have a more difficult time accessing good schools, jobs and transportation, a disadvantage that can become multigenerational, said William Frey of the Brookings Institution, who looked over an early draft of the study.

Researchers were careful not to overstate the changes, however.

Even in the most segregated cities, most people still live in middle or mixed-income areas, said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and director of its Social & Demographics Trends project, which released the study.

“So we're not absolutely segregated,” he said.

But the increased stratification is related to the shrinking of the middle class, he said.

Growing economic segregation is a problem Congress has been attempting to address for the better part of three decades, in part with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, which offers developers tax rebates for putting affordable housing in more upscale neighborhoods as a way to help break the cycle of poverty.

A San Antonio Express-News investigation earlier this year, however, found the vast majority of the affordable housing developed in Texas under the program ended up in poor neighborhoods, exacerbating the problem.

That failure was most pronounced in Bexar County, where none of the properties developed with the tax credit were built in affluent neighborhoods.

Char Miller, a former Trinity University professor and author of “Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas,” said he was somewhat surprised at the study's findings.

“I thought we were farther past this,” he said from the campus of Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., where he now serves as director of its environmental analysis program.

San Antonio in the 1930s and 1940s was a place of vast disparity between the wealthy North Side of town and the impoverished West, East and South, Miller said.

“That it continues is a little surprising and a little depressing,” he said. “It's a remarkable reflection of the enduring power of race, class and income to define American life.”

Karisa King contributed to this report.

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