As I See It: Making Local Poverty a Priority

by Samantha Polon

Wednesday April 4, 2007

Recently I received a postcard from a friend who went to the Bahamas. I was struck by the perfect world that it encompassed. I can only imagine what the world could be like if society did not have to face such realities as poverty, genocide, and war. Those glossy images secluded beaches, shaded groves and laughing children are not representatives of the world we live in, but these far-away areas are often the center of economic and social study at liberal arts colleges.

It is frustrating to see the focus on poverty in nations outside the United States when we face an ineffective welfare system, and a shockingly large percentage of the country’s population lives in destitution.

One such area is only a ten minute drive away, and yet social and economic models for poverty solutions often discussed on campus and in the country at large focus on international areas. That is not to say that Argentinean business owners or Iraqi cement manufacturers do not deserve to be lifted out of poverty or given economic opportunity. It is jus simply irresponsible to pretend we have the answers or solutions to combat global poverty when our own economic situation is a mess. It is a privilege to live in a free nation, but free does not always mean right.

The aforementioned area is the South Bronx, a district notorious for drugs, crime, and poverty that has seen significant gentrification in recent years. At the Highbridge Community Center, the daily struggle is evident in the maturity level of the center’s many children, the committed parents and the local conditions.

In the 1980s, the South Bronx was home to one of the larges drug rings in New York. Led by “Boy George,” the area located near to what is now the Cross Bronx Expressway was a community filled with dealers, crack mills and cockroach-infested apartments. Fort Apache in the Bronx, starring Paul Newman, and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s journalistic masterwork Random Family shed light on the area’s conditions in the 1980s and serve to demonstrate the radical change that has occurred since then.

Developing nations are often cited as having impossibly low wages and conditions that prevent families from living safely and securely in their homes. In fact, one of the deadliest fires in New York City’s history occurred in the Highbridge community, due to a faulty heater. The fire took the lives of nine children and one adult and brought an entire community together. Such conditions are not limited to urban areas. In fact, the rural Midwest of the United States suffers a great deal of intense poverty due largely to the diminishesd family farm and the conglomerates that dominate the agricultural industry. West Virginia’s Huntington, which happens to be its second largest city, is located in one of the poorest rural districts in North America. The per capita income of Buffalo County, South Dakota, is a mere 5,200 dollars, which in today’s world of inflated gas prices and high food costs means citizens of that county are living in conditions comparable, if not worse, than the developing nations that are the subject of most poverty debates.

The question is then, how can we face new issues of poverty and economic struggle brought on by wars and social policies that are spearheaded by the United States? How can we face these issues in a world that is so directly affected by the United States’ own economic situation? We can find these answers in the community of the South Bronx. This community is an excellent example of how positive social change and community building serve to create economic growth. Regardless of what the New York bureaucracy has provided for this community, it is the people that change their own living situations. The Highbridge community is undeniably a strong one, but that does not mean that the community can be expected to fix all of its own problems. With basic changes like more affordable housing and a more comprehensive welfare system with payoffs that wean people off the program, it is very possible to drastically change the amount of poverty found within the United States. Until we can effectively change the economic patterns within in our own country, I see no possibility for creating new economic patterns in the developing world.