Report: Childhood Poverty High In Detroit, But Teen Pregnancy Down

[Rockntractor]

DETROIT (WWJ) A new report from Data Driven Detroit reveals that in spite of the many families with kids that left Detroit between 2000 and 2010 — much of the city’s population still consists of children living in poverty.

Sixty percent of children in Detroit live in poverty, per the “State of Detroit” report. This represents a 64.7 percent increase in child poverty in the city since 1999. Children account for 194,347 of Detroit’s residents, or 27 percent of the city’s total population.

Despite the poverty rate, the report also shows that there are some positive changes taking place in the city, according to the data firm’s director Kurt Metzger. It shows a significant decrease in the number of teen pregnancies.

“Much more actual education in schools, much more open discussions, I think there’s been a lot more effort around that not only in Detroit Public Schools, but also nationally we’re starting to see those numbers go down,” Metzger said.
Read More>http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/01/...regnancy-down/
What this means is that they have last years gaming system, the TV's in their rooms are less than 22 inch, they have to settle for 2 topping pizza's at Simple Simon's and they drink generic soda.

[Starbuck]

There is some good news in the report. Not much, but some.

My own personal observation is that families in poverty do not move, even though they are the ones who most need to move. Also there appears to be a link between poverty and large families. Affluent families do not have as many children, and once that chain of having many children is broken, people don't go back to having, say, eight kids.
In other words, if you come from a family that has only one or two kids, that's all you will have, and all your children will have.

And maybe the word is getting out that the fastest way to permanent poverty is to become pregnant as a teenager.

But I still don't buy that stuff about them drinking generic soda. 'Dey ain't no way in hell!

[Novaheart]

There is some good news in the report. Not much, but some.

My own personal observation is that families in poverty do not move, even though they are the ones who most need to move. Also there appears to be a link between poverty and large families. Affluent families do not have as many children, and once that chain of having many children is broken, people don't go back to having, say, eight kids.
In other words, if you come from a family that has only one or two kids, that's all you will have, and all your children will have.

And maybe the word is getting out that the fastest way to permanent poverty is to become pregnant as a teenager.

But I still don't buy that stuff about them drinking generic soda. 'Dey ain't no way in hell!

They did before welfare as we know it. That's how the cities turned black. I have encountered many black people in DC who have essentially forgotten how they came to be there. Younger blacks sincerely believe "my family has always lived here" and others are convinced they built it, despite the fact that very few houses in DC were originally built for black occupants. When my mom was a girl, southeast Washington was nearly all white and the DC schools were considered superior to any in Maryland.

As recently as my youth, the blacks of DC still had familial tie lines to the Carolinas. "At-risk" or already in trouble black youth were often sent by their parents to live with grandparents or other relatives in the Carolinas to remove them from the growing menace of ghetto sub-culture in eastern DC and the spillover into PG county.

For their part, the poor whites came down the mountains to work in the factories. They did it a little differently than the blacks, and there is a wonderful documentary about Appalachian people "commuting" to the factories of Ohio. They would live cramped up in urban dwellings in Ohio during the work week and pile into cars and return home to the mountains to recharge their batteries and be with family on weekends.

[Novaheart]

One of the most disturbing aspects of the condition of urban youth is the apparent lack of concern about having a felony arrest or conviction on ones record. As I understand it this is a barrier to military service, which is often the best or the only way out of poverty for many. In some cases they appear to think it's cool to have a brush with the law.

I wonder why there aren't residential military schools for at-risk youth whose parents don't have the cash to send them off to some private reserve in Tennessee or Alabama. Surely it would be more cost efficient than paying for the effects of neglect and disregard for the consequences of poorly inspired youth.

[TVDOC]

One of the most disturbing aspects of the condition of urban youth is the apparent lack of concern about having a felony arrest or conviction on ones record. As I understand it this is a barrier to military service, which is often the best or the only way out of poverty for many. In some cases they appear to think it's cool to have a brush with the law.

I wonder why there aren't residential military schools for at-risk youth whose parents don't have the cash to send them off to some private reserve in Tennessee or Alabama. Surely it would be more cost efficient than paying for the effects of neglect and disregard for the consequences of poorly inspired youth.

To an extent I agree with you (for once), however, having lived in the Detroit area for many years over the decades, the solution does not totally rest within the educational system.

In order for inner-city poverty to REALLY be addressed, it has to come from within.......urban blacks will have to take a loooong look in the mirror, and decide, as a group, to join the rest of American society instead of isolating themselves from it as they do now......the end of "black culture" would be a starting point.........however, I don't see that happening anytime soon........

"Detroit" is not the problem......the people who live there are the problem......

doc

[Novaheart]

To an extent I agree with you (for once), however, having lived in the Detroit area for many years over the decades, the solution does not totally rest within the educational system.

In order for inner-city poverty to REALLY be addressed, it has to come from within.......urban blacks will have to take a loooong look in the mirror, and decide, as a group, to join the rest of American society instead of isolating themselves from it as they do now......the end of "black culture" would be a starting point.........however, I don't see that happening anytime soon........

"Detroit" is not the problem......the people who live there are the problem......

doc

I agree with you about the role of "black culture". Many Blacks see such a remark as racist. I think it's racist that they view "urban (poor)" black culture as the definitive black culture and Blacks who reject it as "acting white" to the degree that they even expect successful blacks to act ghetto in informal settings to fit in. For our part, white people certainly have subcultures on collision course with destruction, but we see them as lower class, ethnically or regionally dysfunctional rather than a core feature of whiteness. This despite the fact that numerically poor whites have to outnumber poor blacks. Sociologists would probably say that the difference is that poor or lower class whites know that they can "clean up" and transition or pass for middle class or upper class whereas many blacks (especially dark skinned or profoundly negroid) feel that there is a barrier that excludes them automatically by appearance and which they cannot cross. These people are given to predict that all blacks, like Obama, will experience an "nword moment" , ie the point at which they realize that no amount of ambition, accomplishment, or assimilation to "white culture" will change the fact that white people see them as nwords.

[Starbuck]

They did before welfare as we know it. That's how the cities turned black. I have encountered many black people in DC who have essentially forgotten how they came to be there. Younger blacks sincerely believe "my family has always lived here" and others are convinced they built it, despite the fact that very few houses in DC were originally built for black occupants. When my mom was a girl, southeast Washington was nearly all white and the DC schools were considered superior to any in Maryland.

As recently as my youth, the blacks of DC still had familial tie lines to the Carolinas. "At-risk" or already in trouble black youth were often sent by their parents to live with grandparents or other relatives in the Carolinas to remove them from the growing menace of ghetto sub-culture in eastern DC and the spillover into PG county.....................

The interesting thing about your post is that you and I are seeing the same phenomenon from a different perspective. I was looking at it from the perspective of someone from Mississippi, so as I see it the most assertive, most aggressive, most ambitious people left, and the slack jawed, confused, dependent types stayed. And here we sit today, with the bottom of the barrel still here. Their cousins left years ago for Chicago and Detroit.
Today, the best of the cousins are leaving now Detroit and Chicago for work in the State Department (for example), and, again, the worst of the lot stay where they are.

I have said before that I believe America was founded by the best and the brightest from all continents except Africa. The Africans who came here were not willing participants, and had lost some sort of power struggle in their home countries. These weaker Africans were then sold to white Europeans by the more powerful Africans.

Driving the US as I did in a truck with Mississippi plastered all over it, I was approached many, many times by black people who wanted to tell me that their family had come from Mississippi back before they were born. They were always curious about Mississippi; wanted to know if I knew where such-and-such was. And I always encouraged their questions and assured them that Mississippi was not the place their Grandparents had left. And it isn't. Mississippi has the highest percentage of black elected officials of any state.

Today, I see black people moving back. Not in droves, exactly, but it is happening.

Interesting stuff.

[noonwitch]

I've been living in metro Detroit for 25 years. I also spent plenty of time in Detroit in the early 70s, when I was a kid and my grandparents still lived there (before they retired and moved to Traverse City).

I wouldn't dispute the 60% of Detroit children living in poverty statistic. The black middle class left the city-either at the end of the Archer administration (1994-2001-I left the city in 2001)) or during Kwame's administration. Why live in Detroit, with it's crappy schools and high property taxes, if you can get a house for the same price, with lower tax rates and better schools in suburbs like Warren or Eastpointe? When the middle class leaves, only the poor are left, not counting a few wealthy people who live in high rises on the riverfront. The kids are poor-they're not hungry, but they are poor.

Welfare is a trap that keeps people in poverty and keeps them in the ghetto. No one had the foresight in the 70s, when the american auto industry started to decline and the white flight from the city ensued, to start a small business program, to train people how to start up and run a business of their own-there's no Junior Achievement in the Detroit Public Schools.

The auto industry does not produce the numbers of jobs that the city depended on in the past, but the medical segment of the local economy continues to grow. There are jobs in nursing, different technicians, and so on at the local hospitals, which continue to expand. Once upon a time, the schools prepared the kids to graduate and get a job at one of the Big Three factories, now they need to prepare the kids to be nurses aids and technical assistants, which are the types of jobs that motivate people to go to nursing school and college to get better jobs. People like me, who work with kids, are trying to encourage them to look into medical field careers. Nursing is a great career, and these days, it pays well if you work at a hospital or nursing home.

I've mentioned my crazy friend and her conspiracy theories. She is black, and grew up in the suburbs, with married parents, a middle class upbringing, weekly attendance at an MBE church, and decent schools. After she graduated, she couldn't find a good job so she got one in retail management and rented a studio apartment near Wayne State. I already lived in the city at this point, and had been living there for a few years. I was amazed at how fast she bought into the ghetto world. The next thing you know, she's telling me that Dennis Archer is a tool of the white man and Mike Illitch has elderly property owners killed so that he can buy their property.