Income trends: While the latest Census numbers show poverty declining across America, Philadelphia has retained its unenviable position as the poorest of the 10 most populated U.S. cities. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
Trying to explain the city’s “extraordinarily high poverty rate,” Drexel University economist Paul Harrington said that job growth in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania as a whole has lagged behind national averages for several years, inhibiting any real chance to reduce poverty.
Also, while the city provides better-educated millennial newcomers and suburban commuters “very high-end” jobs in science, engineering, and health careers, the bulk of the rest of the available work in Philadelphia is low-paying, largely in the leisure and hospitality sector, Harrington said.
- Meanwhile, San Francisco has surpassed D.C. as the metro area with the highest incomes. (SF Gate, Washington Post)
The Apple plaza: Apple’s plan to transform its retail stores into “town squares”—with features like outdoor plazas, boardrooms, and indoor trees—is stirring debate over whether private companies can ever truly foster successful “public space.” (Washington Post)
Next-gen responses: The ways that app-based companies stepped up with the recent hurricanes—i.e. Airbnb and GasBuddy helping people find shelter and fuel, Uber and Lyft offering free rides—signals “a new generation of disaster response,” according to Quartz.
School takeback: Newark, New Jersey, is regaining control its school system after over 20 years under state oversight—a sign not only of education progress but also “recognition that state control is an idea whose time has passed,” The New York Times writes.
The two Detroits: A new Urban Institute report supports the idea of an unbalanced Detroit, with outer neighborhoods seeing less tax subsidy investments than the city’s downtown area — a trend that experts say is following the jobs. (Michigan Radio)
The urban lens:
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