The graphics and data people at The Washington Post have created a fantastic interactive map that allows Internet users to view the income and education levels of any zip code in America.
Just enter your zip code, zoom in on your surrounding area and become amazed at the disparities.
In Macomb County, the most prosperous zip is 48042 in northern and eastern Macomb Township. The Post, relying upon 2010 Census data, reports that the median household income there is $85,885 and one-third of adults have a college degree.
Just 10 miles away is the county’s poorest zip, 48089 in southeast Warren, where the median income is $38,116 and just 8 percent have a degree.
The Post used a ranking system that scores every U.S. zip code from 0 – the poorest and least educated – to 99 – the richest and most educated.
48092 is ranked 78; 48089 is ranked 11.
The income/education gap is even more pronounced in Oakland County. For example, the tiny adjacent cities of Huntington Woods and Pleasant Ridge enjoy median incomes of about $108,000. College degree attainment ranges from two-thirds to three-fourths of the population. Huntington Woods (48070) ranks in the 98th percentile; Pleasant Ridge (48069) ranks 96.
Just a couple of miles away is Hazel Park (48030) which ranks in the 9th lowest percentile, with income of slightly above $35,000 and 9 percent with a college background.
The incongruence throughout southeast Michigan clearly reveals discrimination in decades past and a new trend across America of “clustering.” That’s a reference to people migrating toward neighborhoods and communities where they fit in – based upon their job, their background, even their politics.
The Post, relying upon an approach developed by noted author Charles Murray, has identified the nation’s 650 “Super Zips” – those ranked 95 or higher. Oakland County has nine Super Zips; Macomb has none. Wayne County has one, and it’s not one of the Grosse Points.
Zoom out on the map and you will see surprisingly wide swaths of Michigan where all the zip codes rank 40 or less.
Across the nation, the Post found 650 Super Zips. Among them, the typical household income is $120,000 and seven in 10 adults hold college degrees. That compares with $53,962 and 27 percent for the remaining 23,925 zips shown.
The map is accompanied by an enlightening story about the growing divisions throughout the U.S., with upper income couples and families congregating to upscale areas where their neighbors are doctors and lawyers and scientists.
The imbalances, such as those between Pleasant Ridge and neighboring Hazel Park, are labeled the “skyboxification in American life” by Michael Sandel, a Harvard philosopher. He references the parallel lives in sports arenas where some fans watch from the cheap seats and others enjoy the game from their skybox.
Post reporters Carol Morello and Ted Mellnikhighlight a recent analysis of census data by sociologists Sean Reardon of Stanford and Kendra Bischoff of Cornell, which demonstrated how middle-income neighborhoods have been fading away as more people live in areas that are either poor or affluent.
In 1970, 65 percent of families lived in middle-income neighborhoods; four decades later, 42 percent did.
Meanwhile, the share of families living in affluent neighborhoods doubled, from 7 percent to 15 percent, as did families living in poor neighborhoods, from 8 percent to 18 percent.
The detailed Post story includes this disturbing encapsulation:
“Some sociologists think the trend is isolating well-to-do Americans from the problems of the poor and the working poor, and impeding upward mobility that has long been part of the American dream.
“‘So much of opportunity in America depends on what sociologists call social capital,’ said Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociologist. ‘Who you know. Who’s willing to invest in your skills.’
“As the affluent become more isolated, the working class and the poor become confined ‘to communities where no one has a college education and no one has connections to the world,’ Klineberg said. ‘The social capital that’s so necessary for upward mobility is more difficult to come by than it was in the old days when there was broad-based prosperity.’”
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