Displacing Poverty

Place-centric thinking is the reason for persistent poverty at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: People develop, not places.

Subject Article: "3 Ways Local Leaders Can Connect Cities for Growth."

Other Links: 1. "The Impact of College Education on Geographic Mobility: Evidence from the Vietnam Generation."
2. "In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters."
3. "The Immigration Act of 1965: Intended and unintended consequences of the 20th Century."
4. "Want a New Life? Wait Here for a While."
5. "Inskeep Explores Growing Pains Of An 'Instant City.'"
6. "About: 'Arrival City.'"
7. "The Persistent Geography of Disadvantage."
8. "London Brain Drain."
9. "Immigration Kills."

Postscript: To borrow Michel Foucault's concept of episteme, the rupture in migration patterns appears to have occurred in the 1960s and is linked to the Immigration Act of 1965. One geographic legacy of that shift affecting New York City today:

The total number of older immigrants in New York is also increasing rapidly. Over the last decade, as the native-born senior population decreased by 9 percent, the number of older Asian immigrants grew 68 percent, older Caribbeans 62 percent and older Latinos 58 percent. Overall, the number of foreign-born seniors jumped 30 percent in that time, going from 356,000 in 2000 to 463,000 ten years later.

“The aging segment of the Asian population is the fastest-growing part,” notes Howard Shih, a demographer at the Asian American Federation in New York. “The wave that came in the 1960s, when the Immigration Act removed race-based quotas, has been here for over 40 years and is now getting to retirement age.”

My working hypothesis, the dramatic shift in immigration policy informed the inversion of who migrated domestically. I'm pulling this idea from the book, "Stepping Out of The Brain Drain." Other countries followed the lead of the United States, sparking a war for talent. The United Nations condemned this brain drain from the Global South. The book reframes this narrative in light of more recent understanding of international talent flows (e.g. brain circulation). Prior to 1965, the term "brain drain" didn't make sense. The highly-skilled immigrants agglomerated in the few US locations for the innovation economy, creating a draw for domestic talent to pull up stakes and move to where the jobs are. International brain drain became domestic brain drain. The Industrial Belt began transforming into the Rust Belt.