
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 26, 1993                   TAG: 9306260100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

NATION'S POOR SINK DEEPER INTO POVERTY

Americans living in poverty are poorer than they were 20 years ago and their numbers have increased, housing researchers said at a conference here this week. In many cases, they said, they don't know why this has happened.

"The greatest deterioration occurred in large cities in the Midwest, especially in Detroit," where 40 percent of the city's census tracts have been designated as "extreme poverty areas," said John Kasarda, director of the University of North Carolina's Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

Four of the five U.S. cities with the highest incidence of poverty in the country are located in the Midwest. In addition to Detroit, they are Chicago, Cleveland and Milwaukee, Kasarda said.

The good news, Kasarda said, is that Northeastern cities, where poverty was most prevalent during the 1970s, made a "significant turnaround" during the 1980s.

- The Washington Post

by CNB