U.S. Losing Its Middle-Class Neighborhoods

From 1970 to 2000, Metro Areas Showed Widening Gap Between Rich, Poor Sections

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006; A03

INDIANAPOLIS -- Middle-class neighborhoods, long regarded as incubators for the American dream, are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself.

In their place, poor and rich neighborhoods are both on the rise, as cities and suburbs have become increasingly segregated by income, according to a Brookings Institution study released Thursday. It found that as a share of all urban and suburban neighborhoods, middle-income neighborhoods in the nation's 100 largest metro areas have declined from 58 percent in 1970 to 41 percent in 2000.