The Oakland Press: Poverty shift to suburbs hits Oakland County, too

Areas around Grand Rapids, Lansing, Detroit lead U.S. in rates of increase

While Oakland County ranks among the most affl uent counties in the nation, it has not been immune to a national trend of growing poverty in suburban communities.

For the first time in the nation's history, suburban poor have outnumbered their innercity counterparts. A study of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas indicates that more than 12 million suburban residents were living in poverty in 2005. This is about 1.2 million more than in inner cities.

"Economies are regional now," said Alan Berube, who co-wrote the report for the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "Where you see increases in city poverty, in almost every metropolitan area, you also see increases in suburban poverty."

This has certainly been the case in the Detroit metropolitan area and across southern Michigan.

The report identifies the suburbs surrounding Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit as having the fi rst-, second- and third-highest rates of increased poverty in the nation.

Kurt Metzger, research director for the United Way of Southeastern Michigan and a longtime advocate of regional economic development planning, said the findings come as no surprise, given Michigan's struggling economy.

"This is a clarion call to show people that we are all in this together. The suburbs are not going to survive if the cities do not survive," he said. "We either have to come back as a region or we're not going to come back at all."

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