Lewis Mumford Center Census 2000 Metropolitan Racial and Ethnic Change Series

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National Trends

Figure 1 on the following page provides national averages (weighting for population size) for the eight prosperity indicators for cities and suburbs. It shows that the average suburb greatly outpaced the average city on such measures of economic health as median household income ($50,175 vs. $36,535), per capita income ($24,210 vs. $20,291), and percentage of homeowners (72.6% vs. 50.4%). Cities have more than double the poverty rate of suburbs (18.2% vs. 8.6%), over a third more unemployment (8% vs. 5%), and more vacant housing (8.1% vs. 6.6%).

The figure also shows (along the left-hand axis) the cities’ performance as a ratio to that of the suburbs. For example, cities’ median income was only .73 as high as suburbs’, while suburban poverty was only .47 as high as cities’. We use these ratios later in this report as a way to summarize disparities on each indicator.

There is some good news. Cities and suburbs are close to equal on percentages of college educated (27% vs. 26%) and those working in professional managerial jobs (35.5% vs. 34%). On both indicators the city-suburb ratio is .95, near parity. It is likely that the similarity between city and suburb on these indicators is related to their different age composition. Recent college and professional school graduates between the ages of 22 and 35 often live in cities rather than suburbs as they begin their careers. This changes the educational and occupational profile of city residents, but does not have as much effect on income or homeownership.

Regional Differences: City-Suburb Disparities Smaller in the South and West

Table 1 shows how cities performed on each indicator compared to suburbs in different regions of the country. Cities in the South and West clearly fared better than those in the Northeast and Midwest.

Cities in the South and West have more college educated and professionally employed than the suburbs. In the South there are 11% more college educated individuals living in the cities than in the suburbs and 4% more working in professional managerial jobs. Likewise, cities in the West have 8% more residents with a college education and 2% more in professional employment. The ratios in Table 1 show that these advantages were eroding slowly during the 1990’s, however. For example, the ratio of city-to-suburb education level in the South dropped from 1.16 to 1.08.

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