![]() Many of their childhood memories could not be confined to neighborhood boundaries, a picture often complicated by extended families and community organizations. The study didn’t try to quantify how happy the people in the cohort ended up. Sherry Holeczy’s family cared more about their church community than their neighborhood of Ross Township or how much money she earned. Of course, not everyone’s life trajectory can be measured in dollars and cents. While Suto earns many times what her mother earned, others are barely earning the same incomes as their parents. ![]() While 92% of their parents outearned their grandparents, on average, only about 50% of this generation is expected to outearn their parents. The regional economy has changed as well: It’s harder for this generation to get ahead. Several of the Pittsburghers who came from the most challenging neighborhoods described their turmoil as stemming from conflict at home, alongside the challenges they faced once they stepped out the door. The study found five factors that seemed to help neighborhoods the most: less segregation by income and race lower levels of income inequality better schools lower rates of violent crime and a larger share of two-parent households. This wasn’t just a family choice, but a societal change. Malakoff’s mom hired Aunt Polly to take care of Malakoff while she worked as an elementary school art teacher. ![]() One of Lara Malakoff’s childhood role models was her “Aunt Polly,” a woman down the street from her home in Allegheny West. Many of their mothers also began to work as they got older. “Me and my little brother would go down to the creek, catching crawfish, minnows, geckoes, avoiding the stinging nettles,” said Meghan Snatchko from Coraopolis, who also spoke about exploring open stormwater pipes. They climbed trees, bicycled and set up hockey nets in the street - with much less supervision than they give their own children. They described childhoods where they were given freedom to wander until the street lights turned off. The Pittsburghers from this era grew up at a time when the migration out of the city, after the collapse of the steel industry, was coming to an end. But even these factors cannot account for all of the differences between neighborhoods. ![]() And the earlier kids experienced better conditions, the better their outcomes could be.Īmanda Suto, photographed on Marshall Avenue in Perry South. Children from similar families and racial and economic backgrounds often led very different lives if they moved to a more affluent neighborhood. Census Bureau and tax returns to determine how many in that cohort got pregnant as teenagers, went to prison, got married, and even how much money they made as adults by 2015.Īnd what the study found was that the effects of a childhood move can be quite significant. Researchers for a long time have wondered about people like them: How much would the move to a more affluent neighborhood help them? How much do neighborhoods matter in shaping who we become as adults?ĭallas and Suto are two of the more than 20 million children across the country who were born between 19 whose lives have been tracked by the Opportunity Atlas, one of the largest studies ever to try to answer those questions. They each grew up in neighborhoods where kids like them from poor households didn’t often succeed.īut they both moved in the middle of their childhoods to more affluent neighborhoods. Amanda Suto and Cynthia Dallas were born a month apart in Pittsburgh: Suto in December 1979 and Dallas in January 1980.
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