WashPost

D.C. Gap Between Rich, Poor Widening Census Data Show A City Polarized On Several Scales

By D'Vera Cohn and Sarah Cohen Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, August 13, 2001; Page B01

The dramatic divisions between the District's haves and have-nots widened over the 1990s, according to new census data that show a growing number of rich and poor even as the middle class is shrinking.

The statistics, which provide the most recent detailed portrait of the District, describe a community heavy at either end of several demographic measures: high school dropouts and graduate degrees; crowded apartments and pricey homes; those who rely on public assistance and others who earn their living in the professional ranks.

While this image is not unique for big cities, the most recent information confirms that the District is a community of extremes.

When the 1990 Census was taken, for example, one in 11 households had annual incomes of $125,000 or more when adjusted for inflation. A decade later, one in nine did.

The other end of the income spectrum also grew. The 1990 Census found that one in six households took in less than $15,000 annually. By last year, that had grown to one in five.

The new data came from a U.S. Census Bureau household survey taken last year in conjunction with the 2000 Census. The survey of 700,000 households, which excludes military barracks and other group quarters, has been released so far only at the state level, making the District's figures the first indication of what could be happening in urban centers across the country.

The shrinking middle class and the growing gap between rich and poor mean that city residents are less likely to meet each other on equal terms -- with their children sharing the same classrooms, for example. The phenomenon here and in other older big cities concerns urban experts, who warn that it can worsen political, racial and economic tensions.

"It is setting the stage for more polarized politics than we've had in D.C. for a while," said Jeffrey Henig, director of the Center for Washington Area Studies at George Washington University. "The prospect of political playing to the middle and finding a balanced compromise . . . becomes more iffy."

The survey found other evidence that the District has more highs and lows than the nation as a whole. And by many measures, the highs expanded more than the lows. More than 40 percent of District adults are college graduates, for example, compared with one-quarter of adults nationwide. The city also has a higher percentage of teenagers who have dropped out of high school. Housing is another case of extremes: The District has more than 9,000 homes worth at least $500,000. But there are also more than 13,000 homes officially deemed too crowded.

Despite the chasm, rich and poor share some interests and institutions.

Sharon "Shari" Vollin, manager of the Southeast Branch of the D.C Public Library on Capitol Hill, said that on any given day, homeless people might be reading their e-mail at the library's computers side by side with lawyers checking their stock portfolios.

Vollin stocks best-selling novels sought by the affluent, along with the self-help and religious books that poorer people want to read, she said. There also is a Spanish section for the neighborhood's growing Latino population.

During children's story hours, some youngsters -- "I have to say, most of them are white children," Vollin said -- show up with their nannies. Other youngsters attend in groups from summer camps that offer free lunches to children from low-income families.

"They really are more the same than different," Vollin said of her clientele. "All the people who come to the library want a safe haven and a place of refuge for learning and reading and recreation."

At National City Christian Church on Thomas Circle, racial integration is proceeding, but class integration has been more of a struggle. The church, heavily white and suburban, brought in a change-minded African American minister, the Rev. Alvin O'Neal Jackson, three years ago with the idea of making the institution more multicultural.

"We're working, but it is tough stuff," said Monte Hillis, associate for outreach ministries.

The photographs of new members on a church bulletin board display a range of skin tones and ages. But the debates about change have largely been over middle-class concerns -- whether to add more expressive music, as some African Americans wanted, for example, which some whites initially resisted.

The music question has been resolved, Hillis said. But the church is still struggling over the issue of the homeless.

Homeless people have slept on the church steps for years. A few have been coaxed into services. Some have been referred to social services that helped them move up. But others have quickly arrived to replace them, and some have been accused of defacing the church.

"There is a real ambivalence," Hillis said. "We know what we are called to do. On the other hand, these buildings are the heritage of dreams and sacrifices. We are responsible for that."

The city's growing divide also has implications for District politics and policies.

"It brings up the issue of what is the vision for the city," said Edward B. Lazere, policy director for the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on policies that help low- and moderate-income people.

The tension, Lazere said, is over how best to build an economically stable residential base. He said economic development officials focus on attracting middle-class residents, but he contends that the city also should devote more resources to job training and take other steps to build a middle class "internally."

Henig said the hollowing out of the city's middle class removes a political buffer between a well-off, heavily white community and a struggling, mainly minority constituency, as middle-income blacks are leaving for the suburbs in large numbers.

Polls have shown that the city's white residents set high priority on efficient government, while minorities, especially those in low-income areas, give more priority to social services aimed at helping the poor.

There is less "in-your-face disparity" in Washington than in New York City, Henig said, because the well-off in upper Northwest are physically removed from the poor in Northeast and Southeast.

But the two worlds come together in a growing swath of gentrifying neighborhoods stretching across 13th, 14th and 15th streets NW -- from Logan Circle to Columbia Heights. Housing prices are rising as newcomers buy renovated town houses, squeezing out many longtime renters.

It reminds Henig of the late 1970s, when he arrived in Washington and many people thought a wave of gentrification would wash over the city.

"Some of those ingredients -- the real economic ingredients -- are back now, augmented by this perception of a [D.C. financial] control board takeover, displacement of the old political elite and a new white majority on the D.C. city council," he said.

The economic pressures are real, he said, but the fears of many longtime residents, especially African Americans, of a white middle-class takeover of the city "draw it out into a more emotional arena and one where the fears sometimes do feed upon themselves."

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001