Why this one area of cities is usually the poorest

[Zorro]

When we talk urban poverty and down-on-their-luck neighborhoods, four words come up time after time: North, East, South and West.

It’s not just South Central Los Angeles, the South Side of Chicago or Southeast Washington. You see it from Richmond’s Southside to Steve Perry’s fictional but lyrical “South Detroit.”

As you may have noticed, many of these neighborhoods have one word in common. We wondered: Did a metaphoric gravity of persistent poverty pull folks south?

Uh, no! When retired to the math mines to run quick-and-dirty data, we spotted a trend, but there was nothing southerly about it.

https://wapo.st/4od1but