4 ms·

Misleading title. The study (based on the abstract as I don't have access) doesn't track anyone in this study; it just compares deciles over time, ignoring mov

by tbihl 5y ago

Misleading title. The study (based on the abstract as I don't have access) doesn't track anyone in this study; it just compares deciles over time, ignoring movement between these. So 'the poor' may very well be getting something, but then they're not 'the poor' anymore. In essence, the study rediscovered that division of labor proliferates as economies grow.

refurb 5y ago
Yup. Not a very convincing analysis. There was another study that determined that gentrification actually benefited low income, in particular those who owned property (which is not a small number).
arc-in-space 5y ago
Right. Furthermore, from the very abstract: >We show that income in the least wealthy decile (10%) scales close to linearly with city population, while income in the most wealthy decile scale with a significantly superlinear exponent. Perhaps suboptimal if you believe income inequality is a massive problem, but scaling linearly with population? That's actually better than what I'd expect, and certainly not as tragic as the cherrypicked wording of the headline/news publication seems to imply. It's another episode of an editor using a result to say literally anything they already wanted to. Meta point: Nothing against the study itself here, but growing increasingly tired of this sort of truth-twisting nonsense. It seems like it will never end. How can we fix anything if we can't at least agree to not outright lie to each other?
NineStarPoint 5y ago
There’s a fair quantity of research out there exploring how higher inequality between income brackets tends to come hand in hand with there being less mobility between those income brackets (both in an intergenerational and individual sense). I couldn’t say the extent that is true of cities specifically, but without reading the paper to see exactly the arguments made I wouldn’t out of hand be willing to say the title is misleading.
- tbihl 5y ago
  Can you recommend any particular studies of those you mention about downward mobility?

by tbihl 5y ago

refurb 5y ago

Yup. Not a very convincing analysis. There was another study that determined that gentrification actually benefited low income, in particular those who owned property (which is not a small number).

arc-in-space 5y ago

Right. Furthermore, from the very abstract: >We show that income in the least wealthy decile (10%) scales close to linearly with city population, while income in the most wealthy decile scale with a significantly superlinear exponent. Perhaps suboptimal if you believe income inequality is a massive problem, but scaling linearly with population? That's actually better than what I'd expect, and certainly not as tragic as the cherrypicked wording of the headline/news publication seems to imply. It's another episode of an editor using a result to say literally anything they already wanted to. Meta point: Nothing against the study itself here, but growing increasingly tired of this sort of truth-twisting nonsense. It seems like it will never end. How can we fix anything if we can't at least agree to not outright lie to each other?

NineStarPoint 5y ago

There’s a fair quantity of research out there exploring how higher inequality between income brackets tends to come hand in hand with there being less mobility between those income brackets (both in an intergenerational and individual sense). I couldn’t say the extent that is true of cities specifically, but without reading the paper to see exactly the arguments made I wouldn’t out of hand be willing to say the title is misleading.

tbihl 5y ago
Can you recommend any particular studies of those you mention about downward mobility?