CED and Planning vs Income Inequality Part 1: When Communities Pay the Price

<p>Income inequality is not a new issue for CED professionals. In November 2011, the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco devoted an issue of its publication, Community Investments,to how income inequality was impacting community development. A Federal Reserve Board governor is quoted in the report, “[Income Inequality] is associated with increases in crime, profound strains on households, lower savings rates, poorer health outcomes, and diminished levels of trust in people and institutions (p. 6).” The CED response at the time? Traditional approaches: the provision of affordable housing, access to affordable financial services, workforce development, efforts to build savings and strengthening education.</p> <p>Since then, income and wealth gaps have only expanded, and the issue is not limited only to low-income families. In September 2018, the Pew Research Center foundthat the size of the middle class had not changed, but it was losing ground financially to upper income families. Growing income inequality has specific impacts and implications for the middle class. For example, recent researchby UNC Professor Keith Payne and colleagues on the individual behavioral impact of income inequality on the middle class shows clear links to negative community level economic, social and health outcomes.In short, inequality leads to risky behavior to either try to keep up or to say “What the heck?”  at the individual level. Local governments pay the price.</p> <p>The obvious community level example is opioid addiction, where towns and counties struggle to deal with the fall out.  Tremendous energy is going into how to best provide state and local response (such as the upcoming [...]</p>