Poorest place in US? McAllen, Texas, and here's why

[liberal N proud]

YES, Rick Perry's Texas:

It's a top 10 list no one wants to be on: a new Census brief named the McAllen, Texas, metro area the poorest in the nation.

Roughly a third of the residents in this Mexican border area in the Rio Grande Valley live below the poverty line, in spite of a healthcare industry that continued to add jobs during the recession and a retail sector buoyed by Mexican shoppers who cross the border to buy American name-brand clothes.

The poor have migrated from urban centers and into the sprawling suburbs, which makes McAllen and its surrounding environs a textbook example of how poverty is evolving in America. The geographic dispersion of not only citizens but the jobs that could reverse their financial misfortunes vexes policymakers and challenges an already strained social services safety net.

Poverty used to be an urban scourge, but no more. A report released last month flagged the rust belt city of Reading, Pa., as the poorest in the nation, but neither its 88,000 residents nor surrounding population density are large enough for inclusion in the new research, which looks at metro areas of half a million people or more. If Reading is the traditional face of poverty, greater McAllen, with a population of 741,000, is the 21st-century version.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/21/8432089-poorest-place-in-us-mcallen-texas-and-heres-why

[Horse with no Name]

1. There are lots of poor towns that don't show up on maps that are poorer than McAllen

although McAllen is very depressed. I live in the poorest county in Texas. Funny thing is, our town has been in a depressed state for so long that we haven't been touched much by the recent downturns.

Texas has pockets of wealth and canyons of poverty. Unfortunately, the republicans have redistricted the voting blocks through the pockets of wealth.:(

[Liberty Belle]

2. El Cajon, California has nearly a 30% poverty rate too.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. And vista is up there too

:hi:

[southmost]

3. they key is the population / density

and we are lucky not to have harsh winters down here, otherwise, we'd have many deaths from freezing weather

[JoeyT]

5. It depends on how you're defining "poorest".

Wilcox County: About 36.10% of families and 39.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 48.40% of those under age 18 and 32.10% of those age 65 or over.

I don't know if Wilcox is even the poorest county in the state, but it's the poorest one I drive through often enough to automatically think of it.

Edited to add: It isn't, the poorest is apparently Perry county.