The Wonk Blog at The Washington Post has a study by the Pew Research Center looking at where poverty levels have risen and declined since 1960. They are interested to see that poverty has declined in the southeast and increased in our cities, something anybody who pays attention already knew.
I find more interesting that the largest contiguous geographical region with increasing poverty rates is in far northern CA, central and southern OR, northeastern NV, and western ID. The region's largest cities are Reno and Boise, neither is especially large (ca. 250,000), distinctive or depressed.
I know this region, why should it have increasing poverty? Is it a place to which bitter-enders have retreated to live out their days in single-wide mobile homes on cinder blocks deep in the woods, cooking meth? Or has the lumber industry fallen on hard times with the decline in building? Probably mostly the latter.
