From SF Gate: “Income inequality on par with developing nations”
“If we keep going down this path, San Francisco might still be beautiful, and it might still be walkable and might still be loved all over the world,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of SPUR (an urban planning think tank). “But it will no longer be the cradle of progressivism in America. It will no longer be a place that is dynamic culturally.”
He said it could turn into a larger version of Carmel, filled with rich people and vacation homes. …
The city’s Human Services Agency has released a new report filled with startling data about a rapidly changing San Francisco, where the rich are getting richer and more educated, the poor are falling further behind and the middle-class is skipping town altogether.
One way of measuring income inequality is called the Gini Coefficient, a century-old formula used by the World Bank, the CIA and other groups to measure national economies. If everybody in any given place shares wealth equally, the region scores a 0. If one person holds all the wealth, it scores a 1.
Using 2012 figures from the American Community Survey, a branch of the U.S. Census Bureau, the Human Services Agency calculated San Francisco’s Gini Coefficient at .523.
According to the World Bank, Sweden scores a .25, Denmark scores a .24, and the United States as a whole scores a .45.
Rwanda actually shares wealth a little more than San Francisco, scoring a .508. But we are doing a bit better than Guatemala at .559. So there’s that.
.
“Canada reduced inequality in the 1980s, with the Gini index reaching a low of 0.281 in 1989. Income inequality rose in the 1990s, but has remained around 0.32 in the 2000s.” (More here.)
For Vancouver (from the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto):
.
Well Vancouver West Side seems to be heading that way too…Actually, I don’t have a problem with that at all. If there is a part of town where rich want to live and pay obscene amounts of money for mansions – go right for it – your money to burn – in essence you they subsidize the rest of us (provided that they actually pay taxes)…The problem is that the other parts of town and suburbs are getting out of reach for many…
A tempting thought, until you realize it is displacing the middle class from a neighbourhood adjacent to four major employment centres: Downtown, UBC, the Broadway Corridor and YVR. Therefore that trend it is a contributor to sprawl.
Have you figured the methodology for the Gini score?
How do you…?
“If everybody in any given place shares wealth equally, the region scores a 0. If one person holds all the wealth, it scores a 1.”
Wonder how it is done.
Using integrals!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qY1eC51uLsA/Up3X_wO9YlI/AAAAAAAAJp8/Od20xHfWJMQ/s1600/gini-lorenz-curve-v64n3p1c1-source-ssa-gov.gif
Your y-axis is percent of income and your x-axis is percent of population. The line y=x is perfect equality, where x-percent of income is earned by x-percent of the population. And the vertical line x=100% is one person earns 100% of income.
So you create a function which models the income inequality of the region, which is the curved line. Then you find the “Area B” and multiply by 2. So, if area B is exactly 1/2, then the region is perfectly unequal and if the area is zero, then it is perfectly equal. The numbers are multiplied by 2 in order to have the scale on a more aesthetically pleasing 0-1 spectrum.
Side note: I like how UBC is very unequal. You can imagine wealthy professors and Point Greyers contrasting with poor students.
Thx and I believe you but way over my head.
I would consider income inequality within a neighbourhood to be a positive indicator. Those will be neighbourhoods with income mobility. Income inequality across society is bad, but it’s really important to allow people of different incomes to mix.
Alan, You are a braver man than I to suggest that. 🙂