Connecticut city has nations largest divide between rich and poor

Gap of Luxury
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/10/30/103011-news-unequal-city-1-6/

One of the fiercest concerns of Occupy Wall Street — the stratospheric rise of economic inequality — takes its most dramatic form here, the most unequal city in America.

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“If you’re looking for ground zero for the growth of inequality in the United States, Connecticut is the place,” Stephen Adair, professor of sociology at Central Connecticut State University, told The Daily.

What does that mean in practical terms? The top 20 percent in the Bridgeport area — which includes Fairfield County, one of the wealthiest areas in the United States — took home nearly 60 percent of its income, while the bottom 20 percent took home 2.5 percent of the region’s money. In this nexus of billion-dollar hedge funds and bombed-out housing projects, the top 5 percent raked in a mean income of $685,000, while the bottom 20 percent’s mean income totaled less than $15,000.

To put that in perspective, if the Bridgeport metro area were a country, it would rank 12th from the bottom in the world for economic equality — lower than Mexico, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe.

While there is an extreme gap between rich and poor in southwestern CT, the wealthy suburbs they're talking about are hardly part of the "Bridgeport metro area." They're more accurately suburbs of New York City--most of them about as close to that city than they are to Bridgeport. The wealth they're talking about is part of the general Wall Street/NYC wealth, whereas Bridgeport is really the beginning of a separate New England economic sphere. Most people in these towns rarely, if ever, even visit Bridgeport.

And they vote, and pay taxes according to Bridgeport authorities, right? Still Bridgeport.

Bridgeport has no real services to offer beyond its own city limits and has no special tax authority. These towns are not part of Bridgeport--they're separate entities with their own governments, taxes, and services. Bridgeport has about as much influence on them as Iowa City.

Just sayin'.

isn't that where all the credit card companys are based? Where the CEO's have homes?


How's Delaware's gap between rich and poor, that's another credit center state.

Fairfield Country is one of the wealthiest suburbs of New York with 917K population in 837 sq miles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport,_Connecticut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfield_County,_Connecticut

Other than the fact that Bridgeport is in the eastern end of Fairfield County along Long Island Sound, the one doesn't have much to do with the other.

Note also that: "Since there is no county government or county seat in any of Connecticut's counties, Fairfield County, is only a geographical point of reference. In Connecticut, the cities and towns are responsible for all their local governmental activities including; fire and rescue, schools, and snow removal. In a few cases, neighboring towns will share certain resources through regionalization."

Quite a lot of hedge funds are headquartered in Greenwich, Stamford, and other southwestern Fairfield County towns. Hedge funds control assets as large as those of the major banks, and arguably make more money for their owners and operators. There is probably more economic power in southeastern Fairfield County than on Wall Street.

So Fairfield County statistics would suffer from the "Bill Gates Effect", i.e. when Bill Gates walked into the bar, the top quintile in the bar all became billionaires on average.

Sid