The other side of Nashville was revealed in the nearly 100-page report issued by Metro Social Services this week, outlining the depth and breadth of poverty that has all-too-quietly accompanied the city’s boom years. At a presentation of the sixth annual Community Needs Evaluation Tuesday morning at the Nashville Public Library downtown, the statistics sketched the outline of the Nashville that exists in the shadow of convention centers, ballparks and tax-free skyscrapers:
• Davidson County’s poverty rate dropped slightly from 18.9 percent in 2012 to 17.8 percent in 2013, but it remains well higher than the 11.4 percent rate at the start of the Great Recession in 2007.
• While 24.7 percent of Nashville residents have a household income exceeding $100,000, nearly as many (23.9 percent) have household incomes below $25,000.
• Seventeen Metro Council districts have more than 20 percent of residents living in poverty. In nine districts, the per-capita income was less than $20,000.
The list of dire statistics goes on and on. (continue reading)