Focusing on street safety conditions in Miami as a case study of larger findings, a Governing magazine analysis finds that pedestrians are much more likely to be killed by cars in impoverished neighborhoods.
Describing Miami’s 79th Street as an "especially dangerous thruway," Mike Maciag says the street "exemplifies a troubling reality of urban areas across the country: Pedestrian deaths are much more common in low-income areas than in better-off parts of a city."
Maciag's article explains a Governing analysis "of accident location coordinates for the more than 22,000 pedestrians killed nationwide between 2008 and 2012." Their finding: "poorer neighborhoods have disproportionately higher rates of pedestrian deaths." Stated in more detail:
"the bottom third of Census tracts, in terms of per capita income, recorded pedestrian fatality rates twice that of higher income tracts."
"Metro-area Census tracts with poverty rates below the national rate of 15 percent registered 5.3 deaths per 100,000 residents over the five-year period, while in high-poverty areas where more than a quarter of the population lives in poverty, the rate was 12.1."
Governing's coverage of the analysis includes more a lot more detail and storytelling from Maciag, as well as full results and methodology of the analysis, and an interactive map of fatal pedestrian accidents.
Read the full story: Pedestrians Dying at Disproportionate Rates in America's Poorer Neighborhoods
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