Well what do you expect, we declared a war on poverty, not povery.

For the record, I would support a war on povery.

Actually, poverty rose in Seattle over the past decade (up 14%). It just rose faster in SKC cities like Renton (87%), Federal Way (51%), and Auburn (90% +).

Good Morning Charles,
I would only quibble with your reason for why poor humans come to the city, to get out of poverty. I'm not quick to assume ALL poor people are necessarily poverty-stricken. Poor people like non-poor people come to the city for largely economic opportunities. However, many poor people go to economic opportunities not located in the city. For example, people of another country poor and/or poverty-stricken come to America to work as farm laborers. That, the farm certainly isn't the city but it is an economic draw.

As a result, the city may not be failing. It's just not the economic draw to some poor or even poverty-stricken humans.

@5 It's certainly true that Kent and other local cities can be a great place to confront poverty, but money and services tend to concentrate in the central cities (Seattle) instead of in communities where poverty is highest.

Meanwhile, PI reporting KEH in top 100 rising suburbs...bitch!

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/slideshow…

This is part of a much wider, and well-studied, demographic movement happening across major cities in this country. It's the reverse of the white flight and suburban expansion of the last few decades. Major American cities will now more closely resemble European ones in terms of more affluent center cities closer to jobs and entertainment, surrounded by less affluent (but much more diverse) outer rings of new immigrants, older citizens and lower income families. Suburbs with high end housing stock and more significant tax base (Medina, Bellevue, etc,) will continue to do well and prosper. Ones with cheaper, older housing stock (Federal Way, south King Cty, etc.) will require more state and federal support that will need to be diverted from the now richer cities.

@8 Some of those suburbs (Sammamish, Kirkland) do indeed have their charms, but any photo showing the Kent East Hill looking so bucolic and pleasant is 20 years out of date and wasn't particularly accurate even back then. (My parents live out that way -- so I lived there as a teen in the 80s and still pass it by with some regularity)

I remember Kent as having limited economic opportunities unless you were willing/had the resources to commute, by car, a considerable distance. Which didn't seem to bother my parents, but as a teenager I hated it with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

Poor people tend to go places the rich people have abandoned or ignored. It used to be the inner city, then then the rich people rediscovered that, so now it's the suburbs. Makes sense to me.

For a war on poverty in the Seattle area, you'd have to open training schools in Software Engineering and Aerospace.

UNIONS folk, Renton Tech has apprentice programs that anyone can get into, might take a little time and effort but dont act like its impossible.

Seattle has a higher poverty rate than the state average.

But fuck 'em, anyway. They can move into 150 Sq ft pods. Right, Charles?

Because, ummm, density IS the answer...

I don't get why anyone is boo-hooing poor SKC. The Kent valley is filled rim to rim with businesses- it's the 4th largest shipping center in the US, and of course Boeing builds 737's there. If I had a high school education, I'd rather try to make a living there than any place else in King Co.

@12: Poor people don't actually move into areas where rich people have abandoned. Pockets of affluence move outward from the urban core (Mercer-->Bellevue-->Sammamish), and pockets of poverty move outward from the urban core (SoDo-->White Center-->Burien). Poor people get a little less poor, and the most recent immigrants replace them. The gentrifying areas typically aren't the ones that were originally for the poor folks, they were the places that were for the middle class that had grown long in the tooth before a new generation discovered their charms.