The Changing Map of American Poverty in an Era of Economic Restructuring and Political Realignment

The intent of this study is to demonstrate that an understanding of poverty in geographic and historical perspective can powerfully inform the societal debate over the causes of poverty. I argue that conservative theory, attributing poverty to individual deficiencies, such as indolence and low aspirations, falters when the spatial dynamics of poverty in the United States are considered. The changing map of American poverty does not represent an ebb and flow of lassitude among the nation’s population; rather, it reflects the geographic contours of recent transformations in the American political economy. I begin by investigating the changing map of poverty over the last two decades of economic restructuring and political realignment in the United States. I then present five brief case studies to demonstrate that poverty is geographically produced, as alterations in the market and the state emanating from the global and national levels are differentially translated into the social order of locales to generate distinctive prospects for affluence or impoverishment. Taken together, the five vignettes illustrate geographic diversity not only in the incidence of poverty, but also in the generative processes, modes of resistance or accommodation, and experience of poverty.