Anyone familiar with Cleveland likely has a good understanding of where poverty and wealth are concentrated. Maybe you’ve seen maps showing the dire number of residents in poverty (I’ve made them myself), largely concentrated in formerly redlined parts of the East side of the city. Or maybe you’ve googled something like “best place to live in Cleveland” (like I did when I moved here ten years ago), and came across something like this current top search result, where the first seven results are all West side neighborhoods or Downtown. In most explorations of economic indicators in Cleveland, there is a consistent, frustrating, and tired pattern of what parts of the city appear to be thriving and struggling.
As we began to create the new neighborhood fact sheets, a member of the fact sheet advisory committee mentioned something that stuck with me. He explained that while his community was relatively affluent on average, there was still a sizable number of residents living in poverty—or struggling to get by—that felt largely invisible because of their far more affluent neighbors. With this in mind, I wanted to see if there was another way to explore these notions of wealth concentration in Cleveland.
I wanted to see if there was another way to explore these notions of wealth concentration in Cleveland.
One hundred households in Cleveland
There are roughly 60,800 households in Cleveland with annual incomes of less than $25,000. This represents about a third (36.2 percent) of all households in Cleveland. While not all these households fall below the national poverty threshold (although many certainly do), they are living on less than the regional MIT Living Wage calculation for a single adult of $40,892 annually.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are about 4,150 households (2.5 percent of households in Cleveland) with annual incomes of $200,000. These households are in the highest income band reported by the Census’ American Community’s Survey and have incomes greater than roughly 97% of all other households in Cleveland.
Numbers of households this large can be difficult to conceptualize. But if we were to represent these thousands of households geographically by only 200 households, 100 lower income and 100 higher income households, it becomes a little more manageable.
Where do the 100 higher income households live by neighborhood?
Cleveland’s higher income households are largely concentrated on the West side (60) and Downtown (13). Just over a quarter (26) of these high-income households can be found in East side neighborhoods.
Where do the 100 lower-income households live by neighborhood?
Cleveland’s lower income households are more geographically spread across the city than higher income households. About 60 of them live in East side neighborhoods, and 37 live on the West side. Three are living Downtown.
The concentration and spread of income
The households with the highest incomes were far more concentrated by neighborhoods. Over half of these households were found in Downtown (13), and four West side neighborhoods: Kamm’s Corners (12), Ohio City (12); Detroit Shoreway (9); and Tremont (8). On the East side, the greatest number of high-income households were in Buckeye-Shaker (6) and North Shore Collinwood (4).
Despite a greater number of lower income households living on the East side compared to the West side (60 vs 37), there was comparatively much more geographic spread of lower income households across the city’s neighborhoods.
The households with the highest incomes were far more concentrated by neighborhoods.
So what now?
Unsurprisingly, analyzing the income spread across the city in this way aligns with what we already know about Cleveland. This is why advocacy and analysis about poverty will continue to be vital to Community Solutions’ work. This analysis does provide some evidence for the concern raised by that member of the fact sheet advisory committee; there are lower income households likely struggling to make ends meet across the entire city that aren’t readily identified in neighborhood-wide averages.
It’s unhelpful and irresponsible to make conclusions about who is struggling the most in Cleveland, especially when relying solely on Census data.
Instead, it’s meaningful to understand that 1) lower income households—living in neighborhoods largely concentrated with other lower-income households—are likely facing different barriers than lower-income households living in neighborhoods with greater concentrations of high-income households. And 2) There are households across the entire city that are struggling, regardless of (or maybe because of) their neighbor’s income levels. If anything, this underscores the importance of local and neighborhood-based efforts to uplift and support Cleveland residents.
