Boston Among Top 10 US Cities For Income Inequality

Boston was recently ranked in the Top 10 for income inequality in the U.S. by CityLab. The online news outlet used information from the American Community Survey, and data from the book New Urban Crisis, to examine cities across the country from 2012 to 2017.

The report presented the data on income inequality among American’s biggest cities on the standard measure of the "Gini coefficient,” which means the rankings will range from 0 to 1 — with 0 representing the lowest level of equality and 1 representing the highest.

Boston had the 6th-highest income inequality ranking in the country, with a score of 0.543— just ahead of Houston and right behind New York.

“After decades of suburban growth and urban decline, the back-to-the-city movement has accelerated, with affluent and educated people headed back to the urban core,” said Richard Florida, a contributor to CityLab, and the author of "The New Urban Crisis."

“This accelerated urban revival has led to a growing reality of, and growing concern about, gentrification, housing affordability, inequality, and the increased segregation of Americans by income, education, and socioeconomic class," Florida said

Here are the U.S. cities with the most income inequality:

1. Atlanta, Georgia: 0.578
2. New Orleans, Louisiana: 0.562
3. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 0.558
4. Miami, Florida: 0.553
5. New York City: 0.55
6. Boston, Massachusetts: 0.543
7. Houston, Texas: 0.536
8. Dallas, Texas: 0.533
9. Washington, D.C.: 0.528
10. Chicago, Illinois: 0.527

The growing disparity of income inequality in many of the major cities across the United States isn’t actually a crisis of economic failure, but instead a reflection of the success of many more available high paying jobs, according to CityLab.

On the other end of the rankings, Arlington, Texas had the lowest rate of income inequality in the country:

1. Arlington, Texas: 0.429
2. Virginia Beach: 0.433
3. Raleigh, North Carolina: 0.436
4. Fort Worth, Texas: 0.437
5. San Jose, California: 0.437
6. Columbus, Oho: 0.437
7. Colorado Springs, Colorado: 0.441
8. Mesa, Arizona: 0.45
9. Tucson, Arizona: 0.455
10. Phoenix, Arizona: 0.458