That sixties suburban sweet spot revisited -- again

A disturbing new study based on census data, previewed by the New York Times, shows how the rise in income inequality has literally changed the landscape in America:

In 2007, the last year captured by the data, 44 percent of families lived in neighborhoods the study defined as middle-income, down from 65 percent of families in 1970. At the same time, a third of American families lived in areas of either affluence or poverty, up from just 15 percent of families in 1970...

Much of the shift is the result of changing income structure in the United States. Part of the country’s middle class has slipped to the lower rungs of the income ladder as manufacturing and other middle-class jobs have dwindled, while the wealthy receive a bigger portion of the income pie. Put simply, there are fewer people in the middle.

But the shift is more than just changes in income. The study also found that there is more residential sorting by income, with the rich flocking together in new exurbs and gentrifying pockets where lower- and middle-income families cannot afford to live.

The middle class paradise lost, I noted in a recent post, was lived by my wife (b. 1958) growing up on a leafy cul-de-sac lined with 1950s split levels in West Seneca, NY, an inner ring suburb of Buffalo.  Here's what the family recalled recently about neighbors' professions: