Neither of us really know New York like the others in our class, so choosing a neighborhood was a little difficult for us. What we ended up doing was picking a fairly familiar area common to us, which is the area around City College. One thing we noticed that stood out was the amount of people asking us to help them out with some change. We decided to look into that aspect of the neighborhood. Here are our findings:

After years of cultural and economic success during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s and 30’s, Harlem and the general region surrounding Harlem hit rock bottom as crime rates, mortality rates, and poverty increased.

In the 1970’s, Harlem and the general region surrounding Harlem was in its worst condition ever. The last of those who were able to escape poverty moved out in search of safer and more economically-well homes and schools, making the already impoverished region even worse. Central Harlem lost a third of its total population in the 1970’s because of house abandonment. In the 1990’s, however, conditions started improving. National franchises such as The Body Shop, Ben and Jerry’s, Starbucks, etc. started opening stores in the area. Also, crime rates started decreasing as law enforcement improved.

Now, the percentage of families and people whose income in the past 12 months that is below the poverty line in Hamilton Heights, Central Harlem, and Washington Heights is now, 22.5%, 25%, and 20.9%, respectively. Although these numbers are higher than the average New York City’s average of 16.2%, they are an improvement from the late 1900’s. As expected because of the poverty rates, people in 20.2% in Hamilton Heights, 21.7% in Central Harlem, and 30.5% in Washington Heights have had food stamp/SNAP benefits in the past 12 months.

We suspect many people in Hamilton Heights, Central Harlem, and Washington Heights are living in poverty or are low-income families or people because of their educational attainments. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, those with college degrees earn $1.3 million more than those with high school diplomas. Also, according to a report called “The Big Payoff: Education Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings,” those with a bachelor’s degree earn $2.1 million in their lifetimes, and those with a master’s degree earn $2.5 million in their lifetimes.  

If we examine this table, Hamilton Heights has the largest composition of people with college education, followed by Central Harlem, and Washington Heights. Similarly, Hamilton Heights has the highest mean income, followed by the other two neighborhoods. The usage of foods stamps follows this trend by having the highest rate in Washington Heights, and being lowest in Hamilton Heights. While the true picture is much more complicated, these figures seem to give some credibility of the correlation between education and income levels in these neighborhoods.