A Map of the Most Economically Distressed Communities in the United States

Richard Florida and Aria Bendix share news of a new report from the nonprofit Economic Innovation Group, which finds more than 50 million Americans living in economically distressed communities.

"The report, which examines economic distress across tens of thousands of ZIP codes, finds one-fifth them to be in economic distress," according to Florida and Bendix. A map included with the post illustrates how widespread the proliferation of neighborhood distress and spatial inequality.

The article also includes this passage about how the map of distressed communities has changed in recent years:

In the period of recovery following the Great Recession, the authors find, jobs in the median U.S. ZIP code grew at less than half the national rate. While some communities are currently enjoying the fruits of the recovery, others have sunk further into poverty. According to the authors, this pattern of distress vs. prosperity not only “diverges between cities and states but even more starkly within cities at the neighborhood level.”

The article includes more details from the study, including a list of the cities where the largest numbers of people living in distressed zip codes.