Brownsville Ranks Poorest in the Nation
By Chris Mahon/The Brownsville Herald, August 28, 2007 - 11:46PM
The Census Bureau ranks Brownsville as the most impoverished city in the nation, according to the bureau’s 2006 American Community Survey released on Tuesday. More than 40 percent of the city’s 171,000 residents live below the poverty line, the bureau’s figures show. The bureau’s poverty threshold for an individual is a $10,294 annual income. For a family of four it is $20,614.
Despite the last-place standing, there are slight gains being made in this area. In 2005, the poverty level was 42.6 percent, compared to 40.6 percent in 2006. Median household income in Brownsville, the fourth lowest in the nation, is also inching north — $26,017 last year, compared to $24,207 in 2005. “We’ve got to get people’s attention on this,” said Traci Wickett, president of United Way of Southern Cameron County. Click Here for the Rest of the Story.
10 comments:
After the statistician finished flipping all his charts and laser pointing to the significant results a hush fell over the room as a mathematician in the crowd said in a ringing clear voice, " Let me see your data"
Thanks merovingian. There is plenty of data to see, most of it disturbing, particularly in light of the indifference of local leaders to the issues we are facing. Your journey to the land of "let me see" could begin at the Census bureaus's American Community website: http://factfinder.census.gov/
Best
2020
Ok. Comparing the median income to the mean income shows that the strata of poor are not evenly distributed and are clustered nearer the zero level than midway to the median level.
This "abstraction of an abstraction" would lead me to conjecture that the overall 'health' of the city's economic structure is not represented in these statistics rather that Brownsville has far more than its share of abjectly poor people.
If one accepts my analysis as correct, the form of any solution must address that strata of poor directly and not be targeted at the city economy as a whole. While positive effects from that effort will not substantially affect the median income numbers, the mean (average) numbers will rise. City based initiatives will raise the median income and mean income levels, however the strata of poor will remain; yielding a paper success, yet doing nothing to solve the root cause of these depressing statistics.
The unemployment figures from the raw data and the age distribution coincide with this poverty strata. The following statement is going to fly in the face of conventional wisdom about how to solve poverty in Brownsville: The city does not need jobs that pay a $10 per hour. From my analysis, the city needs more minimum wage jobs. The vast majority of the poor are neither qualified nor skilled for higher paying jobs. The skills for $10/hr jobs come from a basic education, not college. I am sorry for that, but economic fatheads are wrong all the time.
"Of course I know. It is my business to know." The Merovingian
Hello Merovingian: Thank you for you very inciteful thoughts. I don't disagree with you. In my view, what we've been doing for the past 20 years in terms of economic development is just not working anymore (if it ever did). Moreover, the issue of poverty and social justice is not on the Imagine Brownsville radar screen, although I have spoken out about it.
Earlier this summer I posted a 2020blog about the "$10 hour" jobs that the new T-Mobile call center was bringing to Bro. It seems that our strategy on reducing poverty-- i don't believe, with all respect to Bono, that we can eliminate it--, should be focused on the different types of poverty in our city. For example, the Center for Civic Engagement is focused on micro-enterprise development in the downtown area with moms and families who are forming a cooperative at the Compassion Center to sell food to the public in a restaurant-certified kitchen we helped them build. What we need is more collaborations: as was suggested in the "My Turn--Town and Gown" article a couple of weeks ago in the Herald: vibrant, dynamic collaborations between the City and the UTB (School of Business in particular). Perhaps CDBG/grant funded Family Business Centers around town manned by volunteers/students/faculty who would provide needed advice, guidance, to micro-entrepreneurs wanting to become financially stable and less dependent?
What do you think we should do?
It is my gut feeling, from any and all such "top down" solutions like "Town-Gown" is that they end up sucking all up all the oxygen and lead to large grant applications that yield....nothing.
What we need to do, and I mean right now, is to get everyone off this $10/hr mantra and use the resources available to make Brownsville a cheap labor town for industrial fabrication. Make the incentives 'preferred' to city residents to prevent a further influx of poor folks looking for any kind of job. We already have Cameron Works to run the program. (and they do it cheaper than BEDC) We have more than our share at present, thank you. I do not wish to be hard-hearted, but we cannot solve other poor area cities problems at the expense of our own people. Jobs are fleeing off-shore because of high US labor costs (or attracted by low foreign costs, depending on your point of view)
The incentives do not need to be outrageous. As a matter of fact, negotiate them and let Cameron Works keep any money higher than the baseline incentive that they can negotiate.
Provide job skills training at the High School level. This attitude that all High Schools are college prep is dragging that purpose down to the point that "good" high school students all seem to require remedial classes at the U.
FIX THAT!
A job skills pathway will take the 'deadweight' handicap off of college bound classes at local high schools. This will quickly cut down on the 'remedial deadwood' at the U.
At this point, I wish to say that I never met an educator that was worth the air and space they took up. I have met a lot of great teachers, though. This attitude needs to be accepted throughout the educational strata.
"Educational theory" is a bunch of hooey. I will gladly debate this, but I will warn any who take me up on that offer that I cheat. I use facts.
Not everyone is college material. Period. Not everyone needs college. Period. Now we can get somewhere. "No child left behind" is producing "No adult that can get a job." We don't have to leave anyone behind, at all. We simply put a fork in the road for those that are better served in life by 'taking a left'
I do not need to see comparative statistics that shows the income difference between college grads and non grads. The comparative statistics between job skilled with job and non-skilled unemployed is by far a larger percentage of difference.
Now that everyone who needs a job has one and the steady stream of half educated idiots quit leaking from our public school system, we will be in a far better position to fix the social inequities and make core improvements to the whole system
Town and Gown is not a top down solution... it is a department by department linking of city personnel and faculty/students on campus to collaborate and work together on solving problems that face our community. Of course it has to have the blessing and support of the "top" folks, but the action is at the department level.
I followed the info and am still exploring the ramifications of the proposal. The myriad possibilities of outcome will take a couple of days of thinking. I just took some aspirin; this is not a bad sign, simply stating that the combinations, permutations, bounds and limits on modeling something social in nature and not inherently mathematical call on mental resources I don't usually engage.
These are my initial reactions; I do reserve the right to possibly do a full 180 upon complete analysis.
On the surface, it has the makings of a Prado Transaction (a good thing).
I think it would be wonderful, provided not a single penny or piece of real estate passed to the U. as a result of this new partnership.
This kind of "attached-at-hip" approach makes me more than a little itchy. At present we have a city government that is barely accountable to the people. If we throw the U. into the fray, which is even less accountable, I can see some real potential downside risk
I'll think about it some more.
I am still preparing a proper response. The M. is a litte busy right now, but I will say that based on my research, I'll be taking that 180 I talked about in my previous post. There are a few 'protect the youth from corruption' safeguards I would like to see in place, but I'll address those in my whopper of a response.
"Of course I know. It is my businees to know" -The Merovingian
As I had promised some time ago, here are my findings as to a proposed pairing of departments within the UTB system and city government departments.
For other organizations that have incorporated the same concept, the pairings have been almost universally beneficial to both entities. This has been the case whether the partnership was limited to particular issues or in a more general form as has been suggested here. They seem to be most successful when there was input to city economic development. In the case of Brownsville, the immediate benefit would seem to me to increase the education factor in several of the levels of city administration. Universities and cities have different resources to draw on, and often these are mutually exclusive. If both entities are pulling in the same direction, each side has to pull less hard on its resources. An immediate example of resourse exclusivity would be grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. These are a natural for cities and not so much so for universities. Department of Education support provides the converse for the city. By combining projects and goals, each does not have to pull as hard on their respective financial resources, making project funding far more likely.
With a more intimate understanding of the needs and the direction that the city is going, the university is in a far better position to usefully advise the local school districts as to the academic needs of students that will be entering the post-secondary system. This would be far superior to the “shot gun” approach of trying to prepare each student for an Ivy League academic career because their future needs are presently unknown.
It is also quite possible that such an arrangement could limit the “brain drain” that is part and parcel of growing up in Brownsville. It is a fact that the city employs a lot of people. A student that has demonstrated experience in working with a city department is of more value as a new employee after graduation than an unknown that mailed in a resume. We could foresee some of our brightest staying here with a future, instead of running off to Houston in search of one.
From a personal prospective, I could see the arrangement providing some benefits in the other direction. The University would by necessity, become more responsive to the needs of the citizens in their town. Their interests would be more closely tied to that of the city as a whole. For those of us that feel that as a whole, having the University here is a one-way street of taking, some local accountability would be a refreshingly good thing. It would work like a control feedback loop, for those of you who have a mechanical bent.
It seems to me that it could be the one thing that we could do easily that could dampen the decisiveness that defines Brownsville politics and possibly usher in an era of professionalism in city government that exits in some of the more successful metropolitan areas.
The initial request of $100,000 in city backed scholarships requested sounded at first to me to be a big chunk of change, but that is only what three or four entry –level clerks would cost the city for a year. In looking at the larger picture it seems cheap enough to give it a try.
I would like to see added protection from harassment and undue influence for the students in the program. Thumbscrews and the rack for transgressors come to mind, but I will settle for a very active program of oversight for the students that will be working with city departments.
"Of course I know. It is my business to know." -The Merovingian
Here are a small smattering of sites I investigated to form my opinion.
http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/Departments/EnvironmentalEd/GreenCity/
University of Louisville Center for Environmental Education
http://www.kent360.com/default.aspx?type=wm&module=4&id=1&state=DisplayFullText&item=5986
University and City Partnerships: no city gets left behind
http://www.uww.edu/marketingandmedia/news_releases/2003_05_university_c.html
A job creation partnership formed between UW-Whitewater and the city of Whitewater
http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=9166
A ground-breaking project to bring together the region’s performance management practitioners with University of Plymouth academics has been launched at the university's city campus.
http://connectivecorridor.syr.edu/index.php/2006/03/31/federal-representatives-announce-start-of-connective-corridor/
News: Syracuse University, City of Syracuse
Federal representatives announce start of Connective Corridor design competition
http://www.deltechpark.org/partners.htm
Delaware Technology Park's success results from strong strategic partnerships. Working together, industry, academia and government are promoting job growth, economic development and innovation.
http://www.fordham.edu/campus_resources/public_affairs/inside_fordham/may_4_2007/news/fordham_school_of_ed_25872.asp
Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education has been selected through a competitive process as a New York Department of Education partnership support organization (PSO) as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s sweeping educational reforms that will give all of New York City’s public schools greater autonomy.
http://www.unr.edu/masterplan/documents/Case4Penn.pdf
CASE STUDY #4: UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - PHILADELPHIA PENNSYLVANIA
University and College Community Partnerships
University of Nevada, Reno Comprehensive Master Plan
decisiveness = Divisiveness in the above article. I would never accuse the local government of being decisive.
M.
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